LibGuides: Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Home

Websites for Further Exporation

Databases

PubMed @ Duquesne This link opens in a new window Enables you to connect directly to Gumberg Library holdings via PubMed. PubMed provides access to bibliographic information that includes MEDLINE, OLDMEDLINE, as well as the out-of-scope citations from certain MEDLINE journals; citations that precede the date that a journal was selected for MEDLINE indexing; and some additional life science journals that submit full text to PubMedCentral and receive a qualitative review by NLM.
CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) This link opens in a new window Indexing for more than 3,000 journals from the fields of nursing and allied health, this database contains more than 2.9 million records dating back to 1981, as well as complete coverage of English-language nursing journals and publications from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses’ Association: health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, educational software, audiovisuals and book chapters.
Scopus This link opens in a new window The largest abstract and citation database of research literature and quality web sources. indexes content from 24,600 active titles and 5,000 publishers which is rigorously vetted and selected by an independent review board, and uses a rich underlying metadata architecture to connect people, published ideas and institutions.

The Desktop Guide to Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Publication Date: 2006-08-17
This clinical reference provides concise, evidence-based information on 69 popular forms of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and 46 common conditions frequently treated with CAM.
Nurse's Handbook of Alternative and Complementary Therapies
Publication Date: 2002-07-31
This comprehensive handbook covers more than 100 alternative and complementary therapies, as well as fundamentals of alternative therapies and their impact on nursing practice.

Welcome

This guide is designed to provide an overview of complementary and alternative medicine. It provides information and guidance on:

The history of complementary medicine
Definitions and resources for two main branches of complementary medicine, natural products and mind and body practices
Complementary medicine professionals including education, licensing, and best practices for choosing a professional
Research methods for complementary and alternative therapies

A monk practicing meditation

Public Domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons

What is Complementary Medicine?

Simply put, complementary medicine and therapies are health care approaches developed outside of mainstream Western, or conventional, medicine.

There are three terms that are often used interchangeably but that should be identified separately: complementary, alternative, and integrative.

Alternative: a non-mainstream practice that is used in place of conventional medicine
Complementary: a non-mainstream practice that is used together with conventional medicine
Integrative: bringing conventional and complementary approaches together in a coordinated way

Today, the use of alternative medicine is uncommon. Most people use these approaches in tandem with conventional treatments.

Note: Some links and resources featured in this guide are only available to current Duquesne University students, faculty, and staff. You may be prompted to enter your MultiPass credentials to access materials off-campus.