Use of alternative medicine widespread among the mentally ill

The use of unregulated alternative or complementary treatments is growing rapidly throughout the population. Yale investigators have found it is particularly prevalent among people with psychiatric disorders. People with illnesses such as depression, schizophrenia and anxiety disorders are 25 percent more likely to use alternative or complementary treatments than those without such disorders.

“The results suggest that a substantial portion of patients with mental conditions use these therapies, whether to treat mental or other medical conditions,” said Benjamin G. Druss, M.D., M.P.H. ’95, assistant professor of psychiatry and epidemiology and public health, the study’s lead author. Published in the July issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, the findings, Druss said, speak to the potential importance of screening for these treatments, which may interact with prescription psychiatric medicines. The researchers found that 9.8 percent of those reporting a psychiatric illness made a visit to a complementary or alternative practitioner, and about half of these people (4.5 percent) made a visit to treat the psychiatric illness. Among alternative treatments used for that purpose, herbal remedies were the most common.