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Men with Prostate Cancer: Making Decisions about Complementary/Alternative Medicine

Pharmacy, 19 Russell St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2S2; telephone: (416) 946-5859; fax: (416) 978-1833; heather.boon{at}utoronto.ca

Judith Belle Brown, PhD

Alan Gavin, MSW

Kathleen Westlake, MSc

Purpose. The purpose ofthis study was to explore prostate cancer patients’ perceptions, feelings, ideas, and experiences regarding making decisions to use (or not use) complementary/alternative medicine (CAM). Methods. Five focus groups were conducted with 29 men diagnosed with prostate cancer. Content analysis ofthe verbatim transcripts was used to identify key themes in the data. Findings. Decision making about CAM treatments appears to depend on both fixed (e.g., disease characteristics, demographic characteristics, and medical history) and flexible (e.g., perceptions of CAM and conventional-medicine, experiences with the health care system and health care practitioners, and perceptions about the need for control or action) decision factors. Conclusions. The participants in this study appeared more likely to be "pushed" toward using CAM by negative experiences with the health care system than to be "pulled" toward CAM by perceptions about its safety or congruence with their beliefs about health and illness.

Key Words: complementary and alternative medicine • prostate cancer • decision making

Medical Decision Making, Vol. 23, No. 6, 471-479 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0272989X03259815


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