Profiling the Use of Complementary Alternative Medicines among Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients: Results from a Single Center Survey

Table 1

Demographic and clinical factors and their relationship to the usage of CAMs as reported by the patients responding to the CAM questionnaire. ¹ (%); median (IQR) in years; ²Pearson’s chi-squared test; Fisher’s exact test; Wilcoxon rank sum test.

Characteristic		Overall,	CAM users,	Non-CAM users,	value^2
Gender	441				0.025
Male		229 (52%)	104 (58%)	125 (48%)
Female		212 (48%)	74 (42%)	138 (52%)
Highest educational qualification	421				0.020
Currently attending school		8 (1.9%)	1 (0.6%)	7 (2.8%)
Secondary		184 (44%)	66 (38%)	118 (48%)
Bachelor		135 (32%)	58 (33%)	77 (31%)
Master		93 (22%)	49 (28%)	44 (18%)
PhD		1 (0.2%)	0 (0%)	1 (0.4%)
Diagnosis	454				0.14
CD		293 (65%)	112 (61%)	181 (67%)
UC		161 (35%)	73 (39%)	88 (33%)
Disease duration	385	12 (5.23)	11 (5.22)	13 (4.23)	0.9
Number of treatments	419				0.05
Five		1 (0.2%)	0 (0%)	1 (0.4%)
Four		1 (0.2%)	0 (0%)	1 (0.4%)
Three		10 (2.4%)	6 (3.4%)	4 (1.7%)
Two		39 (9.3%)	23 (13%)	16 (6.6%)
One		368 (88%)	148 (84%)	220 (91%)
Alcohol intake	382				0.8
More than 1 to 2 drinks per day		22 (5.8%)	9 (5.7%)	13 (5.8%)
1 to 2 drinks per day		81 (21%)	32 (20%)	49 (22%)
Less than 1 drink per day		233 (61%)	100 (64%)	133 (59%)
Not a drinker		46 (12%)	16 (10%)	30 (13%)
Smoking status	410				0.5
Ex-smoker		239 (58%)	97 (57%)	142 (59%)
Nonsmoker		115 (28%)	53 (31%)	62 (26%)
Smoker		56 (14%)	21 (12%)	35 (15%)