Determining Complementary and Alternative Therapies Used in Women’s Infertility Treatment

INTRODUCTION: This descriptive study aimed to determine the complementary and alternative therapies used by women for infertility treatment. METHODS: The sample of the study comprised 102 infertile women admitted to the out patient reproductive clinic of a university hospital between November 2017 and May 2018. Data were obtained by using a personal information form prepared by the researchers and consisting of questions that ask for the kinds of complementary and alternative treatments that infertile women have used and by using the “Complementary and Alternative Medicine Approaches Scale.” The data were evaluated by using SPSS for Windows 20.0 package program using number, percentage, mean, standard deviation, chi-square test and Student’s t-test. The statistical significance level was accepted as p<.05. RESULTS: It was determined that 59.7% of the women included in the study were between the ages of 31–40 and 38.2% were university graduates. Of the women, 58.8% worked, 69.6% had income equivalent to expenses and 79.4% had a nuclear family structure. In the study, 61.8% of women used complementary or alternative treatments. Of them, 87.3% prayed, 86.2% went to neighbors, 68.6% performed ritual prayers, 45.1% turned to cognitive behavioral approaches. Furthermore, 61.8% of the women consumed honey,56.9% carob,53.9% garlic, and 45.1% omega capsules were used as nutritional treatments. It was found that 33.3% of the women who could not have children naturally used manipulative and energy approaches such as rubbing their wrists with cologne, 16.4% performed cupping, and 11.9% went to bioenergy specialists. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: It is very important to know the complementary and alternative treatments used by infertile women wanting to have children. It is very important for nurses to know whether their patients’ use of complementary and alternative therapies and what methods they use, and to prevent the occurrence of side effects in the difficult and long process of treatment. Inline with the results of this research, it is recommended that qualitative studies on complementary and integrated practices be conducted and that midwives and nurses receive training for complementary and integrated practices.