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The European Journal of Public Health Advance Access published online on July 8, 2009
The European Journal of Public Health, doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckp104
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.

Belief in complementary and alternative medicine is related to age and paranormal beliefs in adults

Jan Van den Bulck and Kathleen Custers

Leuven School for Mass Communication Research, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Parkstraat 45, Box 3603, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

Correspondence: Jan Van den Bulck, Leuven School for Mass Communication Research, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Parkstraat 45, Box 3603, 3000 Leuven, Belgium, tel: +32-16-323294, fax: +32-16-323312, e-mail: jan.vandenbulck{at}soc.kuleuven.be

Received May 4, 2009 , accepted June 11, 2009

Background: The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is widespread, even among people who use conventional medicine. Positive beliefs about CAM are common among physicians and medical students. Little is known about the beliefs regarding CAM among the general public. Among science students, belief in CAM was predicted by belief in the paranormal. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 712 randomly selected adults (>18 years old) responded to the CAM Health Belief Questionnaire (CHBQ) and a paranormal beliefs scale. Results: CAM beliefs were very prevalent in this sample of adult Flemish men and women. Zero-order correlations indicated that belief in CAM was associated with age (r = 0.173 P < 0.001) level of education (r = –0.079 P = 0.039) social desirability (r = –0.119 P = 0.002) and paranormal belief (r = 0.365 P < 0.001). In a multivariate model, two variables predicted CAM beliefs. Support for CAM increased with age (regression coefficient: 0.01; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.006 to 0.014), but the strongest relationship existed between support for CAM and beliefs in the paranormal. Paranormal beliefs accounted for 14% of the variance of the CAM beliefs (regression coefficient: 0.376; 95%: CI 0.30–0.44). The level of education (regression coefficient: 0.06; 95% CI: –0.014–0.129) and social desirability (regression coefficient: –0.023; 95% CI: –0.048–0.026) did not make a significant contribution to the explained variance (<0.1%, P = 0.867). Conclusion: Support of CAM was very prevalent in this Flemish adult population. CAM beliefs were strongly associated with paranormal beliefs.

Keywords: complementary and alternative medicine, cross-sectional study, paranormal beliefs.


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