Exploring unmet healthcare needs, healthcare access, and the use of practitioner based complementary and alternative medicine in adults with chronic pain

Abstract

Background: Chronic pain is a complex condition frequently encountered in nursing practice, resulting in negative multidimensional effects on the individual and healthcare system. Increasingly, people with chronic pain are turning to Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) to manage their pain.

Objectives: To explore the relationship between healthcare access, unmet healthcare needs, and practitioner-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine use in adults with chronic pain.

Design: A secondary analysis of 1688 individuals ≥18 years old self-reporting chronic pain from Cycle 9 of the Canadian National Population Health Survey.

Methods: Multivariate logistic regression and descriptive statistics.

Results: When controlling for demographics and health status indicators, the presence of unmet healthcare needs was found to predict CAM use (p < 0.001; OR 2.02; CI [1.45, 2.81]), along with sex, education, income, employment, and restriction of activities.

Conclusion: People may be using CAM due to shortcomings of the conventional healthcare system, with implications for policymakers and healthcare professions to develop more integrative strategies to improve chronic pain management.

Impact statement: Having unmet healthcare needs is associated with two-fold increased odds of using Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Canadian adults with chronic pain.

Keywords:

• chronic pain
• complementary therapies
• health services accessibility
• surveys and questionnaires
• population health
• Canada

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ontario Graduate Scholarship.