Integrative Health Care Shift Benefits and Challenges among Health Care Professionals

Nurses play an important role in supporting patients with any illness who often seek information regarding alternative therapy. Within their scope of practice, it is expected that nurses have sufficient knowledge about the safety and effective use of alternative therapies, and positive attitudes toward supporting patients who wish to use such therapies. An alternative therapy refers to the health treatments which go along with the medical care, and it is based on natural and traditional methods. It includes natural therapies, herbal medicines yoga, aromatherapy, batch flower medicines, spiritual therapies etc. They offer people the chance to try therapies outside of their standard medical care. These treatment methods are totally different from allopathic medical practices. An evaluative approach with one group pre test, post test design was used for this study. The study was conducted in selected rural areas of Tamilnadu. The samples comprised of 600 health professionals. Convenient sampling technique was used to select the samples. Data was collected using structured knowledge questionnaire before and after administering the structured health education program. The study proved their knowledge improved remarkably after administering the education. The findings of the study support the need for providing information to improve the knowledge of the health professionals regarding complementary therapies in the perspectives of integrating health care shift towards alternative therapies. So the findings have also proved that the information booklet was effective in terms of gain in knowledge scores. Dr. Pushpamala Ramaiah | Dr. Sahar Mohammed Aly | Dr. Afnan Abdulltif Albokhary "Integrative Health Care Shift- Benefits and Challenges among Health Care Professionals" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-4 | Issue-2 , February 2020, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd30044.pd