Vest gating knowledge and attitudes of caregivers of patients affected by mental disorders towards complementary medicine treatments in health centers affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in 2014

Background and At the present time, for treatment of patients with mental disorders, authentic medical world’s resources emphasize on association of non-drug complementary medical treatments with herbal treatments. Regarding the fact that patients’ families are considered as both recipient and provider care units, they are the most important audience of health system and they play amajor role in patient’s recovery. Therefore, investigation about their knowledge and attitudes towards the existed treatments could be extremely effective for continuation and quality improvement of the treatment.
Methods and Materials: The current research is a descriptive analytical cross-sectional, one-staged study. It was performed on 181 of caregivers who took care of patients affected by mental disorders who visited one of the health, educational centers of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. For data collection, the researcher questionnaire was used; reliability and validity of the questionnaires were approved by content approval method and Cronbach’s Alpha 0.78, respectively. Data were analyzed by SPSS software, version 21.
According to the results, caregivers had an average level of knowledge and attitudes towards complementary treatment. Since knowledge and attitudes of caregivers are considered to be as one of the most important factors in improvement of patient’s recovery and prevention of illness relapse, therefore, planning seems necessary to increase knowledge and change attitudes of caregivers who receive health and treatment services.
Out of the total 181 participants, there were 100 female (55.2%) and the rest were male. Fifty seven patients aged 40-49 and 65 (35.9%) had intermediate education. The results revealed that knowledge and attitudes of most of the caregivers towards complementary treatment were average. Results of the statistical findings showed that there is a meaningful relationship between demographic characteristics of occupation and educational level and the level of knowledge and attitudes of the caregivers (p=0.02).