Evaluating complementary medicine: methodological challenges of randomised controlled trials

doi:10.1136/bmj.325.7368.832

BMJ 2002;325:832-834 ( 12 October )

Education and debate

Evaluating complementary medicine: methodological challenges of randomised controlled trials

Su Mason, honorary principal research fellow ^a, Philip Tovey, principal research fellow ^b, Andrew F Long, professor ^c.

^a Northern and Yorkshire Clinical Trials and Research Unit, Academic Unit of Epidemiology and Health Services Research, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9NG, ^b School of Healthcare Studies, University of Leeds, ^c Health Care Practice Research and Development Unit, University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT

Correspondence to: S Mason medsam@leeds.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Complementary medicine is increasingly popular for treating many different problems. Doctors and patients need evidence aboutcomplementary treatments, but randomised controlled trials needto be carefully designed to take holism into account and avoidinvalid results

You think that by understanding one, you can understand two, for one and one is two. But to understand two, you must firstunderstand "and." Sufi saying¹

Complementary medicine should be evaluated as rigorously as conventional medicine to protect the public from charlatans andunsafe practices,^2-5 but many practitioners of complementarymedicine are reticent about evaluation of their practice. Scepticsmaintain that this is because of fear that investigations willfind treatments ineffective and threaten livelihoods. In defence,many practitioners argue that research methods dissect their practicein a reductionist manner and fail to take into account complementarymedicine's holistic nature leading to invalid evaluation.

Summary points

Complementary medicine has a different philosophy from conventional medicine, presenting challenges to research methodology
Rigorous evaluation of complementary medicine could provide much needed evidence of its effectiveness
Good design of randomised controlled trials will avoid invalid results and misrepresentation of the holistic essence of complementary medicine
Practitioners need to be recognised as a component in or contributor to complementary treatment
Both specific and non-specific outcome measures with long follow up are needed to adequately encompass the essence of complementary medicine

Nature of complementary medicine

Complementary medicine comprises many different disciplines, a wide spectrum . . . [Full text of this article]

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Rapid Responses:

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Double standards: Ron Law
bmj.com, 11 Oct 2002 [Full text]
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Re: Re: Re: Re: But then again -----: Peter J Moran
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