Use of complementary and alternative medicine during the menopause transition: longitudinal results from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined whether use of complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies during the menopause transition varied by ethnicity. DESIGN: The Study of Women's Health Across the Nation is a prospective cohort study following a group of 3,302 women from five racial/ethnic groups at seven clinical sites nationwide. Using longitudinal data encompassing 6 years of follow-up, we examined trends in use of five categories of CAM (nutritional, physical, psychological, herbal, and folk) by menopause status and ethnicity. To account for potential secular trends in CAM use or availability, we also evaluated the trends in CAM use over calendar time. RESULTS: Approximately 80% of all participants had used some form of CAM at some time during the 6-year study period. White and Japanese women had the highest rates of use (60%), followed by Chinese (46%), African American (40%), and Hispanic (20%) women. Overall use of CAM therapy remained relatively stable over the study period. In general, CAM use did not seem to be strongly associated with change in menopause transition status. Use of CAM among white women did not change with transition status. Among Chinese and African American participants, we observed an increase in CAM use as women transitioned to perimenopause and a decrease in use of CAM with transition to postmenopause. Among Hispanic and Japanese women, we observed a decrease in use of CAM in early perimenopause, followed by an increase as women entered late perimenopause and a decrease as they progressed to postmenopause. Patterns of use for the five individual types of CAM varied. White women had relatively stable use of all CAM therapies through the transition. Japanese women decreased use of nutritional and psychological remedies and increased use of physical remedies as they transitioned into late perimenopause. Among African American women, use of psychological remedies increased as they progressed through menopause. CONCLUSIONS: Although CAM use did vary in some ethnic groups in relation to advancing menopause status, there was no evidence of influence of calendar time on CAM use. Patterns of CAM use during menopause are likely to be driven by personal experience, menopausal health, and access to therapies. Women's personal preferences should be taken into consideration by healthcare providers for medical decision making during menopause and throughout the aging process.

Complementary and alternative medicine use among American women: findings from The National Health Interview Survey, 2002.

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among Americans is high, especially among women, but a national profile of women CAM users has yet to be characterized. This study identified sociodemographic, health, and lifestyle factors associated with use of various types of CAM among women in the United States and examined health conditions and reasons for use. METHODS: Data from the 2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, were analyzed (n = 17,295 women). Any recent use of CAM as well as specific types of CAM (e.g., biologically based therapies) use were analyzed; prayer was considered separately. Prevalence estimates and logistic regression results were weighted, and variance estimates were adjusted for complex sample design. RESULTS: About 40% of women reported any recent CAM use. Biologically based therapies (23.8%) were the most frequently reported CAM type, followed by mind-body therapies (20.9%). User characteristics were generally similar across specific CAM types; there were some differences between women who used CAM and women who prayed for health. Women frequently reported using CAM in conjunction with conventional medicine and to treat chronic pain conditions. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides a comprehensive profile of recent CAM use among a national sample of American women, including user characteristics and reasons and conditions for use. Widespread CAM use reflects a social phenomenon of healthcare-seeking practices that can potentially inform public health strategies for health promotion and disease prevention.

Mandating coverage of biologic therapies for rheumatic disease: where evidence and politics meet.

In this issue of Arthritis Care & Research, we inaugurate an occasional series of commentaries entitled Policy Matters. In all of clinical research, our goal is to improve patient outcomes. Usually, that means focusing on the medical, demographic, and socioeconomic factors at the level of individuals with rheumatic diseases; sometimes, our scope of inquiry expands to encompass the impact of the communities in which they live. However, increasingly, the welfare of persons with rheumatic conditions is also affected by health policies through such diverse mechanisms as reimbursement decisions for specific treatments, insurance coverage, manpower, and NIH budgets (the foregoing list is hardly exhaustive).Recently, a piece of legislation was introduced in California (SB913) that has the potential to alter the availability of biologic response modifying agents (BRMs) by mandating that health plans that provide coverage for one such agent include all on their formularies (a revised version would preclude a trial of another disease-modifying antirheumatic drug before use of a BRM). In this state, the California Health Benefits Review Program (CHBRP) provides evidence reviews of the medical effectiveness, cost, and public health impact of proposed health insurance mandates for the legislature. The analysts from the University of California who conducted the medical effectiveness review of SB913 for CHBRP provide a legislative history of the proposed law in this article. We hope that the readership of Arthritis Care & Research find this article informative as an exemplar of the policies that could dramatically alter the welfare of our patients.

Use of conventional and complementary health care during the transition to menopause: longitudinal results from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN).

OBJECTIVE: Women beginning the transition to menopause now have access to complementary and alternative therapies (CAM) that were not universally available in the past. Little is known about the association between CAM use and the use of conventional health care during menopause. We investigated the longitudinal association between use of CAM therapies and utilization of conventional health care in a large, multiethnic sample of midlife women who were enrolled in the cohort phase of the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN). DESIGN: We used generalized estimating equations, repeated measures modeling to examine the association between CAM use and the yearly number of conventional health-care contacts, adjusting for relevant covariates, during a two-year period. CAM use was evaluated longitudinally as continuous, incident (no CAM use at baseline), sporadic, or no use during the study period. RESULTS: Relative to nonusers, continuous CAM users had more conventional health-care contacts (beta 0.14, 95% CI 0.06, 0.21). Incident users and sporadic users also showed an excess in conventional health-care contacts (beta 0.14, CI 0.06, 0.22) and (beta 0.09, CI 0.01, 0.16), respectively. Ethnicity was independently associated with health-care contacts. Relative to white women, Japanese women had fewer contacts (beta -0.18, CI -0.31, -0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Despite being a generally healthy, well-educated and high-income population with good access to health care, CAM users were using more of both conventional and alternative health-care resources than women who did not use CAM. These findings have practical implications for conventional health-care practitioners, allied health professionals and CAM practitioners.

Ethnic differences in use of complementary and alternative medicine at midlife: longitudinal results from SWAN participants.

OBJECTIVES: We estimated the prevalence and longitudinal correlates of use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) at midlife among participants of the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN). METHODS: Multiple logistic regression was used to evaluate the relationship between baseline survey-reported symptoms and use of herbal, spiritual, and physical manipulation therapies 1 year later. RESULTS: Almost half of all women had used CAM in the past year. Baseline psychological symptoms were associated with subsequent use of spiritual therapies among White and Chinese women. Baseline CAM use was a major predictor of subsequent use in White, Japanese, and Chinese women. CONCLUSIONS: Baseline CAM use, rather than presence of symptoms, was the major predictor of subsequent CAM use. Premenopausal health behaviors are important determinants of choice of therapy during midlife.