Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012:2012:401867.
doi: 10.1155/2012/401867. Epub 2011 Dec 1.

Barriers to integration of traditional and complementary medicine in supportive cancer care of arab patients in northern Israel

Eran Ben-Arye  1 , Mariana Steiner, Khaled Karkabi, Tamar Shalom, Levava Levy, Ariela Popper-Giveon, Elad Schiff
Affiliations

Barriers to integration of traditional and complementary medicine in supportive cancer care of arab patients in northern Israel

Eran Ben-Arye et al. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2012.

Abstract

In 2008, an Integrative Oncology Program (IOP), aiming to improve patients' quality of life during chemotherapy and advanced cancer, was launched within the Clalit Health Organization's oncology service at the Lin Medical Center, Haifa, Israel. The IOP clinical activity is documented using a research-based registry protocol. In this study, we present an analysis of the registry protocol of 15 Arab patients with cancer who were referred to the IOP. Analysis of patients' reported outcomes using the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale suggests that integrative medicine care improves fatigue (P = 0.024), nausea (P = 0.043), depression (P = 0.012), anxiety (P = 0.044), appetite (P = 0.012), and general well-being (P = 0.031). Barriers to integration of traditional and complementary medicine in supportive care of Arab patients are discussed followed by six practical recommendations aimed at improving accessibility of patients to integrative supportive care, as well as compliance with treatments.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of clinical and communicational evaluation along the sequence of integrative sessions within the Integrative Oncology Program (IOS: integrative oncology service; IP: integrative physician; IM: integrative medicine).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Algorithm of study recruitment (in brackets the proportion of Arab patients).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Said O, Khalil K, Fulder S, Azaizeh H. Ethnopharmacological survey of medicinal herbs in Israel, the Golan Heights and the West Bank region. Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 2002;83(3):251–265. - PubMed
    1. Alachkar A, Jaddouh A, Elsheikh MS, Bilia AR, Vincieri FF. Traditional medicine in Syria: folk medicine in aleppo governorate. Natural Product Communications. 2011;6(1):79–84. - PubMed
    1. Ali-Shtayeh MS, Yaniv Z, Mahajna J. Ethnobotanical survey in the Palestinian area: a classification of the healing potential of medicinal plants. Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 2000;73(1-2):221–232. - PubMed
    1. Ben-Arye E, Schiff E, Hassan E, et al. Integrative oncology in the Middle East: from traditional herbal knowledge to contemporary cancer care. Annals of Oncology. In press. - PubMed
    1. Ben-Arye E, Ali-Shtayeh MS, Nejmi M, et al. Integrative oncology research in the Middle East: weaving traditional and complementary medicine in supportive care. Supportive Care in Cancer. In press. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources