Something old, something new, something borrowed, something green: How different domains of traditional, alternative, and complementary medicine use are rooted in an irrational mindset

Abstract

Despite insufficient evidence base for some of its practices, traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine (TCAM) use is rapidly growing; psychological roots of this trend are still under-studied. Based on previous research, input from TCAM practitioners, and content analysis of online media, we developed a comprehensive instrument to measure the use of TCAM and administered it to an online community sample (N=583). Factor analysis indicated four domains of TCAM use, in line with theoretical taxonomies: Alternative medical systems, Natural product-based practices, New age medicine, and Rituals/Customs, all converging toward a common tendency. Irrational beliefs and cognitive biases, especially magical health beliefs and naturalness bias, predicted unique variance in both TCAM attitudes and overall TCAM use, above socio-demographic variables, reported health status, and ideological beliefs. Furthermore, each domain of TCAM use, although differing slightly in sociodemographic/psychological profile, was consistently associated with an irrational mindset, even after controlling for other factors. This provides strong evidence for exploring psychological susceptibility to the use of traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine.