The perceptions and acceptance of local consumers in using traditional and complementary medicine for healthcare

Traditional and Complementary Medicine (TCM), an important component of healthcare industry, is commonly used for health promotion or disease prevention. Demand for TCM worldwide has been increasing substantially, and hence there is a need to investigate the key constructs that will influence the consumption of TCM. This study aims to investigate further the prevalence of TCM and factors i.e. consumer perceptions towards TCM, dissatisfaction towards conventional medicine and health awareness of users that will likely to influence the feeling of TCM usage. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed using convenience-sampling technique to the public in Labuan and Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. The data was collected from 288 respondents yielding an effective response rate of 57.6% and was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Up to 94.4% of the respondents replied that they have used at least one method of TCM. The analysis results showed that socio-demographic factors have limited impacts on the choices of TCM modalities and money spent on TCM, but does not influence the frequency of TCM usage at all, reflected that socia-demographic factors are not good predictors of the choices of TCM modalities. Three out of four variables among the consumer perception towards TCM (perceived safeness of TCM, perceived efficacy of TCM and holistic balance view) are Significantly correlated to the feeling after TCM usage. There is no significant relationship between the dissatisfaction towards conventional medicine and the feeling after TCM usage, but health awareness is found significantly associated with the feeling after TCM usage. The findings of this study contributed significant Importance to the practical industry application and future research