Knowledge, attitude and practice of therapeutic fasting among naturopathy physicians: across sectional national survey
Introduction: Fasting is a common ingredient of naturopathic prescription in India. However no studies have been conducted to establish the use, approach of naturopathy physicians towards fasting.The present study, a cross sectional survey was conducted to assess the attitude, use, belief and unders...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Mashhad University of Medical Sciences
2015-12-01
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| Series: | Journal of Fasting and Health |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://jfh.mums.ac.ir/article_6075_ad4aadf2b6b4132121399d795044d076.pdf |
| Summary: | Introduction: Fasting is a common ingredient of naturopathic prescription in India. However no studies have been conducted to establish the use, approach of naturopathy physicians towards fasting.The present study, a cross sectional survey was conducted to assess the attitude, use, belief and understanding about therapeutic fasting among the naturopathy physicians in India.Methods: A 12 item e-mail based questionnaire was sent among 334 naturopathy physicians, whichwere designed to obtain demographic data, practice characteristics and multiple choice and multipleresponse close-ended questions along with an open-response final question. Survey questionnaire datawas analyzed using descriptive statistics via frequency distribution and cross tabulations. Results: A convenient sample of total 257 participants was collected. Majority of the respondents wereprivate practitioners with an average experience of 5 years. 50% of the total population confirms theuse of fasting in their daily prescription which is mostly for 1-5 days (54%) and for all diseases (38.5%).Physicians mostly prescribe short term mono fasting with fruits or juices (42.8%) along with all othermodalities (61.5%) to get desired effect. The end results of fasting therapy was quoted as satisfactory(51.7%) whereas the misconceptions of the patients was a challenge for 1/3 and most of them find it easy to administer in adults (85%). Conclusion:Naturopathy physicians use fasting as a first line management in almost all chronic andacute diseases. However there is a need for strengthening the evidence based practice to bestow bettercare. |
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| ISSN: | 2345-2587 2345-2587 |