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More children opting for complementary, alternative health care: reports

A new report based on data from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) found that while the overall use of complementary health approaches
among children did not change significantly since the 2007 survey,
there were significant increases in the use of yoga, fish oil and
melatonin for children.

The report, by the National Center for
Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH; formerly NCCAM) and the
National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, appears in National Health Statistics
Reports.

In Canada, a similar trend has been observed. In a study published in January 2013 in the journal Pediatrics, researchers have found the use of complementary and alternative health care such as vitamins, homeopathy and chiropractic is common among children with chronic conditions.

In
fact, complementary health is high among pediatric cardiology,
gastroenterology, neurology, oncology and respiratory patients,
according to the study, which surveyed parents about the use of
complementary and alternative medicines at specialty clinics in Edmonton
and Ottawa.

Massage therapy and chiropractic are the top two most common therapies parents used for their children, the study also said.

The
U.S. survey about use of complementary and alternative health among
children is part of the questionnaire developed by NCCIH and the NCHS.
The questionnaire is administered every five years as part of the NHIS,
an annual study in which tens of thousands of Americans are interviewed
about their health- and illness-related experiences. To identify trends
in Americans’ use of certain practices, 2012 survey data were compared
with a version of the survey fielded in 2007. The 2007 and 2012 survey
results are based on combined data from 17,321 interviews with a
knowledgeable adult about children aged 4 to 17 years.

The
complementary health approach most commonly used by children was natural
products (nonvitamin, nonmineral dietary supplements) at almost
one-quarter the adult rate (4.9 per cent vs. 17.7 per cent). Echinacea
was the most commonly used supplement in 2007, while fish oil was the
most commonly used supplement in 2012.

Melatonin ranked as the
second most commonly used natural product among children. The use of
melatonin among children increased significantly – from 0.1 per cent in
2007 to 0.7 per cent in 2012.

There was a statistically
significant increase in the use of movement therapies – which included
yoga, tai chi, and qi gong – between 2007 (2.5 per cent) and 2012 (3.2
per cent). Most of this increase can be attributed to the increased use
of yoga – approximately 400,000 more children used yoga since 2007.

Among
children who used any complementary health approach, 44.2 per cent used
it to treat a specific health problem or condition in 2007 compared
with 45.6 per cent in 2012. In 2012, acupuncture had the highest
percentage reporting use for treating a condition (70.1 per cent).

In
2012, as in 2007, complementary health approaches were most often used
among children for back or neck pain, head or chest cold, other
musculoskeletal conditions, anxiety/stress, and attention-deficit
hyperactivity disorder.

The researchers noted that although the
use of complementary health approaches in children, both overall and for
individual modalities, is low compared to that seen in adults, these
findings provide the most comprehensive snapshot of the use of these
approaches and are the foundation for future studies in this area.