The characteristics of the use and the levels of diffusion of nonconventional medicine

The national trends of the utilisation of non conventional therapies suggest that an increasing number of patients employ remedies that are outside the mainstream of what has been defined as conventional western medicine. The extent to which these practices have clinical efficacy according to biomedical criteria is a matter of ongoing debate. It may be that independent of any such efficacy, the attraction of alternative medicine is related to the power of its underline shared beliefs and cultural assumptions. The fundamental premises are an advocacy of nature, vitalism, "science" and spirituality. For patients, who choose alternative medicine, the most important reason to abandon conventional therapies could be to move from the sterile "high-tech" realm of official medicine to a more intimate "high-touch" intervention offered by non-physicians.