Abstract
Introduction: It is known that the trend toward alternative treatments is increasing each day regardless of the differences between communities. We aimed to detect alternative treatments in our region and to determine the thoughts of families about these treatments.
Materials and Methods: A total of 214 patients presenting to General Pediatrics Outpatient Clinics of canakkale Onsekiz Mart University Teaching and Research Hospital between October 2012 and February 2012 with fever, coughs, sore throat, wheezing and diagnosed as upper or lower respiratory tract infection and their parents are included in the study.
Results: A total of 93.7% of parents were using non-drug applications with varying frequencies. Alternative practices are being used prior to drug treatment (62.7%), with drugs (28.7%), when there is no response to drugs (6.7%) or never (1.9%). Most common used applications to reduce cough was to give pure honey (30.6%) and the most common application to lower the fever was to use warm shower (48.1%). Most common source of information for these applications was relatives and family members. It was shown that the most requested resources to get information were doctors, nurses and other health care professionals with 84.5%. There was statistically significant correlation between educational status and frequency of usage of non-drug applications. However, requested source of information did not change according to the educational status.
Conclusions: As a result we thought that doctors and nurses dealing with child health and disease should obtain information about alternative treatments and help the parents about logical managements.
