TY - JOUR T1 - Factors Associated with the Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Korean Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis JF - The Journal of Rheumatology JO - J Rheumatol SP - 2075 LP - 2081 DO - 10.3899/jrheum.141447 VL - 42 IS - 11 AU - Minkyung Han AU - Yoon-Kyoung Sung AU - Soo-Kyung Cho AU - Dam Kim AU - Soyoung Won AU - Chan-Bum Choi AU - So-Young Bang AU - Hoon-Suk Cha AU - Jung-Yoon Choe AU - Won Tae Chung AU - Seung-Jae Hong AU - Jae-Bum Jun AU - Young Ok Jung AU - Seong-Kyu Kim AU - Tae-Hwan Kim AU - Eunmi Koh AU - Hye-Soon Lee AU - Jisoo Lee AU - Joo-Hyun Lee AU - Shin-Seok Lee AU - Seong-Su Nah AU - Seung-Cheol Shim AU - Dae-Hyun Yoo AU - Wan-Hee Yoo AU - Bo Young Yoon AU - Sun Ha Jee AU - Sang-Cheol Bae Y1 - 2015/11/01 UR - http://www.jrheum.org/content/42/11/2075.abstract N2 - Objective. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease that is often painful and debilitating. Patients with RA are increasingly receiving complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). We aimed to identify the patient characteristics and disease-specific factors associated with Korean patients with RA who decide to start treatment with CAM.Methods. Among the total 5371 patients with RA in the KORean Observational study Network for Arthritis (KORONA), 2175 patients who had no experience with CAM were included in our study. In our study, we assessed the frequency of new incident CAM use, its patterns, and the predictive factors of new CAM use.Results. Of the 2175 patients, 229 patients (10.5%) newly started receiving CAM within a year of enrolling in the cohort. Of those who started treatment with CAM, 17.0% received only herbal medicine, 54.6% only acupuncture treatments (7.0% used a combination of both), and 21.4% “Other” (e.g., physical therapy and placental extract injections). Women (OR 1.89, 95% CI 1.13–3.14) and patients with depression (OR 3.52, 95% CI 1.65–7.50) were significantly more likely to be treated with CAM. Regarding household types, patients who lived in an extended family (OR 1.78, 95% CI 1.08–2.95) or as part of a couple (OR 1.55, 95% CI 1.07–2.24) were more likely to be treated with CAM than patients living in a nuclear family.Conclusion. Our study found, within a year, an incidence rate of 10.5% for new CAM use among patients with no previous experience with CAM. Sex, depression, and household type were significantly associated with new CAM use. ER -