A Survey on Perceptions of Complementary and Alternative Medicine among Undergraduates in China

Table 1

Characteristics in MU and NU.

		MU (1448), Mean ± SD, 49.36 ± 9.226, N (%)	NU (706) Mean ± SD, 47.86 ± 7.023, N (%)	value
Gender	Males	380 (26.2)	395 (55.9)
	Females	1068 (73.8)	311 (44.1)
Grade	First- and second-year classes	763 (52.7)	346 (49.0)	0.108
	Third-, fourth-, and fifth-year classes	685 (47.3)	360 (51.0)
Age (years)	18–21	1163 (80.3)	551 (78.0)	0.219
	22–25	285 (19.7)	155 (22.0)
Place of residency	Rural	680 (47.0)	336 (47.6)	0.783
	Urban	768 (53.0)	370 (52.4)
Father or mother’s level of education	＜High school	1057 (73.0)	513 (72.7)	0.870
	≥High school	391 (26.0)	193 (27.3)
Proportion of CAM courses	0	129 (8.9)	337 (47.7)
	1–10%	488 (33.7)	137 (19.4)
	11%–20%	181 (12.5)	97 (13.7)
	21%–30%	174 (12.0)	57 (8.1)
	31%–40%	142 (9.8)	30 (4.2)
	41%–50%	141 (9.7)	23 (3.3)
	≥51%	193 (7.8)	25 (3.5)
Source of information	Teacher	704 (48.6)	84 (11.9)
	Books, newspapers, or magazines	264 (18.2)	214 (30.3)
	Media or Internet	304 (21)	292 (41.4)
	Others	176 (12.2)	116 (16.4)
Self-application	Yes	895 (61.8)	395 (55.9)
	No	553 (38.2)	311 (44.1)
Hope to incorporate CAM into the curricula and learn more them	Yes	1270 (87.7)	584 (82.7)
	No	178 (12.3)	122 (17.3)
Publicity for CAM in place of residence	Bad	357 (24.7)	170 (24.1)	0.589
	Neutral	903 (62.4)	454 (64.3)
	Good	188 (13.0)	82 (11.6)
Willingness to recommend to others	Negative	94 (6.50)	44 (6.23)
	Neutral	473 (32.6)	292 (41.36)
	Positive	881 (60.9)	370 (52.41)

MU = students of medical universities, NU = students of nonmedical universities. was considered as significant. The mean CHBQ score was 49.49 ± 10.087 in all medical students (Table 2). Students of TCM have a more positive attitude than students of WM (53.50 ± 7.405 vs 45.58 ± 10.807, ). Except for gender, the proportion of CAM courses in the curriculum, source of information, self-use, and publicity for CAM in place of residence were the factors that caused the differences in attitude. However, there was no significant difference in grade, age, place of residence, and father or mother's level of education. Our result indicated that education plays a vital role on the attitude toward CAM, which is similar to the findings of studies in other counties [14]. We also found that only 19.1% of TCM students thought the publicity for CAM in place of residence was good. We further analyzed the attitude score and the proportion of CAM courses in the curriculum.