OBJECTIVES: Complementary and Alternative medicines (CAM) is common use among people with patients that difficult to treat or chronic illness such thalassemia patients. Therefore, this study to aims to determine the use of Energy Medicines (EM), Manipulative Body Based Therapies (MBBT), Therapies from Whole Medical System (WMS) and Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) among thalassemia patients.

METHODS: This cross sectional was performed among 390 thalassemia patients from Thalassemia Society Club, Kedah Malaysia using self-administrated questionnaire and HRQoL was assessed by using Short Form Health Survey with Only 36 Questions(SF-36).

RESULTS: A total 390 eligible thalassemia patients, 313 (80.26%) reported to have use CAM for their condition. A total of 202 (51.8%) reported to use different types of EM, MBBT and WMS therapies. The majority of the EM, MBBT and WMS users were female 130 (64.4%), aged between 18 to 27 years 123 (60.96%) and were Malay ethnicity 193(95.5%) and from Islam religion 187(92.6%, p<0.05). Therapies from WMS such as traditional Malay medicines 126(62.4%), traditional Chinese medicines 20(9.9%) and homeopathy 47(23.3%) were commonly used by participants. Only 44 (14.1%) reported to spend more than 100 Ringgit Malaysia(MYR) and 208 participants could not estimate their monthly expenditure for CAM treatment. Majority type of β-thalassemia patients were most use 93(46.0%). No significant different found in SF-36 HRQoL score between EM,MBBT and WMS (p>0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: The use of WMS was common use among thalassemia patients. Further research and heath education is required to evaluate safe and practice of these therapies in thalassemia.