Use of alternative medicine in a sample of HIV-positive gay men: An exploratory study of prevalence and user characteristics

Although many HIV-positive individuals use alternative medicine, little is known about user characteristics. In this study, the prevalence of alternative medicine use in a sample of 70 HIV-positive gay men is assessed and characteristics of alternative medicine users are identified. Seventy-one per cent (50/70) of the sample used at least one alternative therapy since HIV serostatus notification, alone or in combination with traditional medicine. A logistic regression was used to identify those measures which are characteristic of alternative users. It revealed that the typical user is a person with symptomatic HIV disease (Wald = 6.18, p = 0.01), who reports little or no pain (Wald = 10.01, p < 0.01) and actively tries to cope with disease-specific problems (Wald = 7.35, p = 0.01) while expressing his feelings about them (Wald = 7.66, p = 0.01). In the sub-set of subjects using antiretroviral medication, those also using alternative medicine reported using more antiretrovirals and better adherence to them, than those not using alternative medicine.