Clinical trial NCT06949345: Health & Digital Literacy and Complementary Medicine Attitudes in Rehabilitation Patients
Official title: Health Literacy in Relation to Attitudes Towards Traditional and Complementary Medicine Among Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Patients.
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: RECRUITING
Conditions: Health Literacy Level
Digital Health Literacy
Complementary and Alternative Therapies
Lead sponsor: Karabuk University
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2025-04-29
Enrollment: 200
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 65
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Observational model: CASE_CONTROL
Time perspective: CROSS_SECTIONAL
Sampling method: PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: Adult patients aged 18 to 65 years who are literate and voluntarily applying to the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation outpatient clinic of Karabük Training and Research Hospital. Participants must be able to provide informed consent and complete the required questionnaires.

Brief summary: This observational study aims to evaluate the relationship between health and digital health literacy and attitudes toward complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in patients visiting a physical medicine and rehabilitation outpatient clinic. Low health literacy may lead patients to try potentially unsafe herbal products influenced by commercial or social media sources. This study highlights the importance of understanding patients' attitudes toward such methods and aims to contribute to the development of educational efforts to improve health literacy. Increasing patients' awareness can support better decision-making, enhance rehabilitation outcomes, and promote the use of evidence-based practices in physical medicine clinics..

Detailed description: This observational, cross-sectional clinical study will be conducted in the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation outpatient clinic of Karabük Training and Research Hospital. The target population includes at least 200 volunteer patients aged between 18 and 65 years. The primary objective is to evaluate the level of general and digital health literacy and the attitudes toward complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and to investigate the relationship between these variables.

Participants will be recruited consecutively from the outpatient clinic. Inclusion criteria consist of being aged 18-65, literate, and volunteering to participate. Individuals who are unwilling or unable to cooperate, or who have cognitive or psychiatric impairments that may hinder questionnaire completion, will be excluded from the study.

Data will be collected through self-administered or interviewer-assisted questionnaires. The tools to be used are:

A structured sociodemographic data form (age, gender, education level, marital status, etc.),

Health Literacy Index (25 items), assessing general health literacy,

Digital Health Literacy Instrument (DHLI) (18 items, 6 subscales), evaluating digital health-related skills,

Complementary and Alternative Medicine Attitude Scale (CAMAS) (27 items, 3 subscales), measuring participants' attitudes toward CAM.

Data will be analyzed using IBM SPSS software. Normality of data distribution will be assessed with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Depending on data characteristics, appropriate statistical tests such as Pearson or Spearman correlation, independent sample t-tests, and ANOVA will be applied. The study will also compare health and digital health literacy levels and CAM attitudes across different sociodemographic and clinical variables.

Findings from this study are expected to highlight gaps in patient knowledge and perceptions regarding CAM and digital health, potentially informing future educational strategies and supporting evidence-based clinical decision-making in rehabilitation settings.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* being aged 18-65
* being literate
* Volunteering to participate

Exclusion Criteria:

* Patients who are unwilling or unable to cooperate

Primary outcomes:
measure: Complementary, Alternative, Conventional Medicine Attitude Scale (CACMAS)
timeFrame: Baseline
measure: Digital Health Literacy Instrument
timeFrame: Baseline
measure: Health Literacy Scale
timeFrame: Baseline
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Personal information form
timeFrame: Baseline
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Karabük
country: Turkey
facility: Karabuk Education and Research Hospital
Study officials:
affiliation: Karabuk University
name: Metehan Yana
role: STUDY_CHAIR
References:
citation: Unal Toprak F, Coskun Palaz S, Caglar S. The impact of health literacy levels on women's fear of contracting Covid-19 and their attitudes toward holistic complementary and alternative medicine: Mediation analysis results. Health Care Women Int. 2023 Jul-Sep;44(7-8):869-884. doi: 10.1080/07399332.2022.2070623. Epub 2022 May 26.
citation: Okawa Y, Ideguchi N, Yamashita H. Relationship between health literacy and attitudes toward acupuncture: A web-based cross-sectional survey with a panel of Japanese residents. PLoS One. 2023 Oct 20;18(10):e0292729. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0292729. eCollection 2023.