Alternative nutrition in cancer patients and the situation in Slovenia

Namen magistrskega dela je bil ugotoviti, katerim alternativnim načinom prehranjevanja so podvrženi onkološki bolniki, kakšna je ponudba informacij o alternativni medicini in kakšna je kakovost spletnih strani ponudnikov teh storitev. Za oceno vpliva različnih prehranskih režimov smo na spletnih portalih in preko ustnih priporočil iskali izvajalce alternativnega zdravljenja rakaste bolezni. Tekom raziskave smo ugotovili, da je v Sloveniji veliko ponudnikov alternativnega načina zdravljenja, toda le majhen delež se jih trži preko spletnih portalov. Odzivnost je bila slaba, saj smo od 23 poslanih prošenj dobili le 13 odgovorov. Po Sandvikovi lestvici smo ocenili kakovost spletnih strani. Večina spletnih strani je bila ocenjena kot »srednje dobra kakovost« kar je zaskrbljujoče. V spletni iskalnik Google smo vnesli iskalni niz »alternativno zdravljenje raka«. Pregledali smo prvih 50 povezav. 40 % povezav je bilo povezanih s članki o alternativnem zdravljenju rakaste bolezni. Rezultati so pokazali tudi, da je večina izvajalcev prehranskih pristopov alternativnega zdravljenja brez ustrezne formalne izobrazbe zdravstvene smeri. Marsikateri alternativni zdravilec meni, da je njegov način zdravljenja uspešnejši od konvencionalnega zdravljenja, in da je razlog neuspeha nekonvencionalne terapije, da onkološki bolniki k njim pridejo prepozno. Rezultati magistrskega dela so prikazali stanje alternativnega zdravljenja v Sloveniji na področju prehrane onkoloških bolnikov.Goal of the thesis was to find out what nutritional regime is used by oncological patients, what is the offer of information about alternative medicine and what quality are websites with information regarding nutritional regimes of oncological patients. To evaluate the influence of other nutritional regimes we looked for organization and provides who perform alternative treatment on the world wide web. During the research we discovered that there are many providers of the alternative treatments in Slovenia, but only a fraction of them in present on the world wide web. Responses of providers were poor, we only got 13 replies of 23 requests. We used Sandvik scale to evaluate the quality of the websites. The quality of these sites was socred on a point system. Most of the websites were of medium quality, which is a concern. On the online search in Google, we are looked for search phrase “alternative cancer treatment”. We reviewed first 50 links. 40 % of which were associated with article of alternative cancer treatment. During the research we discovered that there are many providers of alternative treatments who do not have any formal healthcare education. They also think that patients with cancer seek their help too late and therefore alternative treatment is not successful. Results gathered valuable information to plan following healthcare measures for treatment of cancerous disease in Slovenia