The Prevalence of Complementary and Alternative Medicines use among the employees of the Universities

Background: The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has increased globally. It is essential to properly regulate them to guarantee reasonable quality control, ensure consumers' safety, and integrate them into modern medicine. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of CAM use among the universities in Ninevah Province -Iraq, to their awareness, attitudes, and beliefs.Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted between (2 October-6 December) 2022 in four leading universities (Mosul, Ninevah, Al-Hamdani, and Tal-Afar) in Ninevah Province-Iraq. Data were collected face-to-face via an interviewer-administrated structured questionnaire from a multi-stage sampling of employees. Information was gathered using a data collection form and sent to a Microsoft Office Excel (2010) spreadsheet. Microsoft Office Excel was used to do statistical analysis and make tables. Statistical significance was determined using a chi-squared test, with a p-value of less than 0.01 representing a significant finding.Results: Our results showed that n= (73.7%) of the sample used complementary and alternative medicines. However, we identified a statistically significant correlation between the female gender and herbal medicine use (p 0.001). Females were shown to have more knowledge regarding the origin of herbal remedies than males, and this difference was statistically significant (p 0.05). Furthermore, there was a statistically significant difference between the percentage of those with no medical problems and those with chronic diseases who used herbal medicines (p 0.001).Conclusion: When writing prescriptions and delivering medications to patients, doctors, nurses and pharmacists should ask the patients for their use of any alternative and herbal medicines and take care to inform patients about the adverse effects of HMs evidence-based information on the body when used with a combination of conventional medicine. Patient counselling, CAM information, and education are necessary to increase patients' awareness of pharmaceutical use.