Demographics Use of CAM modalities 80% 70% 60% 50% S 40% M30% 20% 10% 0% 2 100% tsn90% ed80% n op70% sre 60% ten50% tdu40% lsa 30% icd20% eM10% 0% 9 2 – 0 2 9 2 > e l a m e F lea isan M sa c u a C n a i s A r e h t O S ionnU tsreanP irSonnU isrceexE x3kw tsaE lteayh r h B b Age Gender Ethnicity/culture Selfcare MS I MS II MS III Figure 1: Descriptive statistics on medical student respondents. and experience with integrative medicine in current UCLA medical students. This will be used to assess the impact of planned changes in the curriculum in integrative medicine. 1. The Survey A literature search found two existing measures which would ﬁt the purposes of this study. The ﬁrst measure was the 29 item Integrative Medicine Attitude Questionnaire (IMAQ) which was designed for use with physicians and had a Cronbach’s coeﬃcient alpha of 0.83 [24]. The second measure, the 10 item CAM Health Belief Questionnaire (CHBQ), was designed for medical students and was found to have a Cronbach’s coeﬃcient alpha of 0.75 [25]. Our survey consisted of the 10 items of the CHBQ, plus most of the IMAQ, along with some demographic questions (year in medical school, age, gender, ethnicity) and two question about self care (diet and exercise). Age was used as a dichotomous rather than continuous variable, to see if “older” students (deﬁned as those over age 29) would diﬀer from those who had come to medical school relatively directly from undergraduate education. There were three sections to the survey. In the ﬁrst, respondents answered yes/no about their familiarity, per- sonal use, and willingness to recommend to a friend or patient regarding 15 diﬀerent modalities of treatment. In the second part, students reported on their use of a variety of information sources for their knowledge about CAM. The third part consisted of 23 questions using a ﬁve point Likert Scale assessed their beliefs and attitudes towards CAM. The survey was made available to all registered ﬁrst, second and third year medical students in the 2004-2005 academic year at any of the three programs which are a part of the David Geﬀen School of Medicine at UCLA. The study received Institutional Review Board (IRB) exempt Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine iitteaodnM sseaagM liiittraySpu MS I MS II MS III srebH iitrrccaophC lliiittrreaaaoodnnT iiceednm iiahTC teayoophHm ifceeakbodB issyopnH reayvduA ttseayophO ittrcceeaophhuuT isrreaodunCm CAM modality used Figure 2: Use of CAM modalities by medical student respondents. approval from UCLA. In the fall of 2004 an email was sent to students in the classes of 2008, 2007 and 2006 inviting them to participate in an anonymous online survey. A follow-up invitation in January 2005 was extended in person, with paper copies of the survey provided in class after their lectures for ﬁrst and second year students and after orientation sessions for their clinical rotations for third year students. Power bars were oﬀered as thanks to those who completed the surveys. Analyses were done using SPSS version 14 software (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). The frequency and distribu- tion of familiarity with, attitudes towards and usage of CAM were examined and compared by year in medical school. The survey had a Cronbach’s α value of 0.85, similar to that found in the previous use of the component surveys. The total attitude scale mean scores were computed by averaging across all 23 items. Chi square tests were performed to compare between years. Pearson Correlations were used to analyze the association between attitudes towards CAM, year in medical school, personal use, and likelihood to suggest to a friend or patient. All signiﬁcant results are reported at a P < .05. All conﬁdence intervals (CI) are reportable at 95%. 2. Results The total number of subjects was 261. The response rate was comparable in each of the 3 years (ﬁrst year n = 93/152, 61%; second year n = 80/144, 56%; third year n = 88/145, 61%), for an overall response rate of 59%. Figure 1 shows the demographic characteristics of the responding students. Of the demographic variables, only gender and class year were signiﬁcantly associated with survey results. Self-reported use of each of the CAM modalities is shown in Figure 2. Massage (64%), Meditation/Yoga/Relaxation/ Imagery (54.6%) and Spirituality/Prayer were most common used. Year in medical school was signiﬁcantly related to student’s report of use of CAM [F(2,262) = 9.016, P < .01], with reported usage of CAM lower for third year than for ﬁrst year students.