Complementary and Alternative Medicine Education for Medical Profession: Systematic Review

Table 1

Characteristics of included studies.

First author and publication year	Country and type of participants	Study design	Number of participants in the intervention group	Number of participants in the control group	Type of educational approach	Duration and frequency of intervention	Instructors’ professional background	Outcomes reported according to Kirkpatrick level
								2a: Attitude or perception	2b: Knowledge or skill	3: Behavioral change or intention to change
Hewson et al. 2006 [15]	U.S. BMD	RCT	Enrolled at baseline: 24; completed followup: 20	Enrolled at baseline: 24; completed followup: 16	Didactic plus experiential: didactic lectures (3 hours) and experiential workshops (5 hours)	8 hours, 1 session only	TCAMP, Clinicians trained in both BM and TCAM	X	X	X
Hoellein et al. 2009 [16]	U.S. Medical students	RCT	Enrolled at baseline: 92; completed followup: 92	Enrolled at baseline: 94; completed followup: 91	Didactic plus experiential: TCAM workshop and role play with standardized patients	4 hours, 1 session only	BMD		X
Cook et al. 2007 [17]	U.S. BMD and medical students	Non-RCT	Enrolled at baseline: 89; completed followup: 79	Enrolled at baseline: 34; completed followup: 34	Web-based: cased base tutorial on TCAM delivered online	Not reported	N/A	X	X	X
Ashar et al. 2008 [18]	U.S. BMD	Single group before and after study	Enrolled at baseline: 335; completed followup: 335	N/A	Web-based: case-based interactive curriculum delivered online	Not reported	N/A		X
Ben-Aryee and Frenkel 2004 [19]	Israel BMD	Single group before and after study	14 of the 18 participants answered the precourse questionnaire, and 16 answer the postcourse questionnaire	N/A	Didactic plus experiential: experience sharing by TCAMP, case study and experiential workshop	14 weekly sessions, duration of each session not reported	BMD, TCAMP			X
Ben-Aryee et al. 2006 [20]	Israel BMD	Single group before and after study	Enrolled at baseline: 12; completed followup: 12	N/A	Experiential: clinical case presentations	12 weekly session, duration of each session not reported	BMD, TCAMP		X	X
Donald et al. 2010 [26]	U.K. Medical students	Single group before and after study	Enrolled at baseline: 40; completed followup: 29	N/A	Experiential: personal exposure to TCAM modalities during placement	Not reported	TCAMP	X
Forjuoh et al. 2003 [21]	U.S. Medical students	Single group before and after study	Enrolled at baseline: 67; completed followup: 54	N/A	Didactic: Lectures during core clerkship	Not reported	BMD	X
Halterman-Cox et al. 2009 [22]	U.S. Medical students	Single group before and after study	Enrolled at baseline: 52; completed followup: 37	N/A	Didactic lectures	10 weekly sessions, 50 minutes/; session	BMD, TCAMP	X		X
Lu and Torres-Harding 2007 [23]	U.S. Medical students	Single group before and after study	Enrolled at baseline: 469; completed followup: 469	N/A	Didactic plus experiential: Lectures; clinical case presentation; demonstrations of specific TCAM techniques; personal exposure to modalities.	Year 1 (one hour lecture), year 2 (1 hour lecture and 1.5 hours of experiential exercise), year 3 (4 hours symposium with experiential component)	Not reported		X
Mikail et al. 2003 [24]	U.S. BMD	Single group before and after study	Enrolled at baseline: 66; completed followup: 37	N/A	Didactic; Tutorials on uses, contraindications, and drug interactions of popular herbal medicines was presented as a live session, text-only exercise, and online	Not reported	Not reported		X
Torkelson et al. 2006 [25]	U.S. Medical students	Single group before and after study	Type: Enrolled at baseline: 26; completed followup: 24	N/A	Didactic plus experiential: Half-day TCAM site visits; small group lectures and discussion; provision of reference materials; group e-mail exchanges; and a final oral presentation and written report	15 half-day sessions	Clinicians trained in both BM and TCAM	X

Key: BMD: biomedical doctors, TCAMP: traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine practitioners.