CAM use among mid-age women: a national mixed-methods study across the urban-rural divide

该项目的目的是了解和解释为什么区域地区的中年妇女使用补充和替代医学(CAM)的比例高于澳大利亚城市地区。这项工作将为关于这一主题的政策和实践提供证据基础，项目结果将有助于制定对社区卫生、卫生实践和提供方面的地理差异敏感的妇女健康管理倡议和方案。女性使用CAM治疗的可能性明显高于男性，中年女性被发现是澳大利亚女性中使用CAM最多的群体。研究人员和从业者已经确定，从CAM内部进行的治疗可能非常适合于处理一系列中年女性普遍存在的健康问题和相关症状，包括癌症、关节炎、糖尿病和哮喘的发作以及更年期。我们之前的试点工作发现，区域地区的中年女性使用CAM的可能性明显高于城市地区的中年女性。关于为什么会这样，可以或已经提出了一些解释。这些问题包括：区域地区获得常规医疗服务的机会有限；非城市全科医生与CAM提供之间更紧密的工作联系；区域地区对传统医疗服务的不满，以及非城市地区更强大的非正式社区网络。我们提议的项目将利用全国具有代表性的中年女性样本来检验这些假设，并将向政策制定者、从业者、消费者以及澳大利亚城市和地区所有参与妇女健康和保健的人提供有益和感兴趣的结果。

The aim of this project is to understand and explain why higher proportions of mid-age women in regional areas use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) than those in urban areas of Australia. Such work will provide an evidence-base for policy and practice on this topic and the project findings will help develop CAM initiatives and programs for women’s health that are sensitive to geographical variations in community health, health practice and provision. Women are significantly more likely to utilise CAM treatments than males and mid-age women have been found to be the highest CAM user group amongst Australian women. Researchers and practitioners have identified treatments from within CAM as potentially well-suited to dealing with a range of health problems and associated symptoms prevalent amongst mid-age women including the onset of cancer, arthritis, diabetes and asthma as well as menopause. Our previous pilot work found that mid-age women in regional areas are significantly more likely to use CAM than those in urban areas. A number of explanations as to why this is so can be or have been proposed. These include: limited access to conventional health care services in regional areas; closer working ties between non-urban general practitioners and CAM provision; dissatisfaction with conventional health care services in regional areas and stronger informal community networks in nonurban areas. Our proposed project, drawing upon a national representative sample of mid-age women will test such hypotheses and will provide findings of benefit and interest to policy makers, practitioners, consumers and all involved in women’s health and health care across urban and regional Australia.