Conducting an Integrative Health Interview

Publication date: Available online 1 February 2018 Source:The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice Author(s): Maureen George, Melissa Avila, Thomas Speranger, Heidi K. Bailey, William S. Silvers Complementary medicine incorporates the use of non–evidence-based complementary modalities into conventional (Western) medicine. Alternative medicines are approaches that are used in place of conventional medicine. Integrative medicine is the synthesis of conventional medical treatments with “evidence-based” complementary medical practices. When complementary approaches are incorporated into mainstream health care, it is called integrative health (IH). Among children and adults, IH is common despite not all therapies being safe and/or effective. Clinicians have suboptimal knowledge of their patients' IH use because, in part, they do not know what questions to ask and/or do not have a standard intake form to collect an IH history, as recently demonstrated by an American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology membership survey. To address this unmet need, a group of Complementary and Alternative Practice in Allergy Committee members and interprofessional collaborators reviewed the existing literature to locate IH history forms that could assist in identifying patients' IH use. When none was located, the group created 3 templates for the systematic collection and documentation of IH practices: 2 general screening surveys that could be given to patients...

Source: The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice - February 2, 2018 Category: Allergy & Immunology Source Type: research