Alternative medicine: Introduction
NB: See learning outcomes for this tutorial mapped to competencies, a PDF of the whole text, and a one-page summary.
☞ Why this subject matters...
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St John's wort Courtesy of Simon Wills |
You are most likely to be asked about this subject when working in an MI centre or answering calls from a patient helpline, although it may occasionally crop up on your ward.
In practice, most of the time you will be looking into the safety aspects of these medicines. Although a few studies have reported favourably on the use of selected preparations such as St John’s wort for depression, for most alternative medicines there remains a lack of good quality research-based evidence for efficacy or tolerability.