Health Behavior Change and Complementary Medicine Use: National Health Interview Survey 2012.

Background and objectives: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use has been associated with preventive health behaviors. However, the role of CAM use in patients' health behaviors remains unclear. This study aimed to determine the extent to which patients report that CAM use motivates them to make changes to their health behaviors. Materials and Methods: This secondary analysis of 2012 National Health Interview Survey data involved 10,201 CAM users living in the United States who identified up to three CAM therapies most important to their health. Analyses assessed the extent to which participants reported that their CAM use motivated positive health behavior changes, specifically: eating healthier, eating more organic foods, cutting back/stopping drinking alcohol, cutting back/quitting smoking cigarettes, and/or exercising more regularly. Results: Overall, 45.4% of CAM users reported being motivated by CAM to make positive health behavior changes, including exercising more regularly (34.9%), eating healthier (31.4%), eating more organic foods (17.2%), reducing/stopping smoking (16.6% of smokers), or reducing/stopping drinking alcohol (8.7% of drinkers). Individual CAM therapies motivated positive health behavior changes in 22% (massage) to 81% (special diets) of users. People were more likely to report being motivated to change health behaviors if they were: aged 18-64 compared to those aged over 65 years; of female gender; not in a relationship; of Hispanic or Black ethnicity, compared to White; reporting at least college education, compared to people with less than high school education; without health insurance. Conclusions: A sizeable proportion of respondents were motivated by their CAM use to undertake health behavior changes. CAM practices and practitioners could help improve patients' health behavior and have potentially significant implications for public health and preventive medicine initiatives; this warrants further research attention.

Lifestyle and Health Behavior Change in Traditional Acupuncture Practice: A Systematic Critical Interpretive Synthesis.

Introduction: Behavioral factors are the leading cause of ill-health worldwide. Diet, physical activity, smoking, and alcohol consumption are the focus of public health targets on promotion of healthy behavior. The science of behavior change is rapidly growing and has largely evolved within mainstream health care treatments. Traditional Chinese Medicine includes self-care practices that encourage healthy behavior alongside treatments such as acupuncture. Exploring behavior change within traditional acupuncture could potentially highlight new techniques and approaches, and contribute to developing models of behavior change. Aims: In this review, the authors aimed to critically appraise research exploring health behavior change within traditional acupuncture, to highlight gaps in the field, identify questions, and enable theory development. Design/Method: The authors were guided by a critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) method to explore a diverse mixture of research including qualitative and quantitative articles. Eight databases were searched up to October 2017 for articles published in English. Eleven thousand four hundred eighty-eight articles were identified (7,149 after deduplication). Titles and abstracts were screened by one reviewer (10% by a second reviewer). Eligible articles were selected using a Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome framework. CIS methods, including purposive sampling of eligible articles and a reflexive, dialectic process of critiquing evidence and theory, were used to synthesize the evidence. Results: Several articles examined the prevalence and patterns of behavior change and support for change, although methods varied and reliability of results was limited. There was more evidence concerning diet/exercise than alcohol/smoking. Aspects of acupuncturists' work identified as potential key elements for promoting behavior change included: individualized advice based on symptoms; holistic/biopsychosocial explanations; therapeutic relationship; simultaneous treatment of behavior-limiting symptoms; and patients' physical involvement with intervention. A logic model of the process of behavior change was developed, proposing that perceived support, mutual understanding, and active participation may facilitate change. Possible moderators included: single/multicomponent acupuncture; setting; patient/practitioner characteristics; treatment experience; timing; and treatment duration. Conclusion: These findings suggest behavior change work is a significant part of traditional acupuncture practice, although more reliable evidence is needed to understand the effectiveness, prevalence, and patterns of this work (in particular the patterns suggesting acupuncturists are more likely to work on changes to diet and physical activity than alcohol and smoking behaviors, and more likely to support changes in long-term compared with acute conditions). The proposed model of behavior change should be developed and tested with a view to refining the model and elaborating the suggested links with a wider theory of behavior and behavior change. This review was preregistered with PROSPERO as "Health behaviour change in traditional acupuncture treatment: a protocol for a critical interpretive synthesis": CRD42018099766.