Assessing the role of evidence in patients' evaluation of complementary therapies: a quality study.

Background: Making the decision to use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for cancer treatment is difficult in light of the limited available evidence for these treatments. It is unclear how patients use evidence to make these decisions. Objectives: (1) Describe the type of information about CAM that cancer patients use in their decision making; (2) understand why certain types of information about CAM are accepted as evidence by cancer patients; and (3) explore the role of scientific evidence in treatment decision making. Methods: A qualitative study design using in-depth semistructured interviews with cancer patients attending 4 conventional and integrative health care institutions in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, was used. Results: Twenty-seven patients were interviewed. Patients sought CAM information from a range of sources, including the Internet, health care providers, friends, relatives, and newspapers. Many expressed frustration about the overwhelming amount of available informa...