Alternative Medicine and General Practitioners in The Netherlands: Towards Acceptance and Integration

A questionnaire on alternative medicine was sent to 600 general practitioners in the Netherlands. Most of the 360 (60%) GPs who replied expressed an interest in alternative practice; and 47% revealed that they used one or more alternative methods themselves, most often homoeopathy. However, the number of patients given alternative treatment by each doctor was small. Almost all (90%) of the GPs referred patients to alternative practitioners. There is no reason to assume that GPs make use of alternative methods just to meet their patients' wishes. A majority of the respondents thought that these... Mehr ...