Pharmacists are not confident discussing complementary medicines with their patients, research reveals.
The research, conducted by the National Prescribing Service (NPS), determined the attitudes of consumers, GPs and pharmacists towards complementary medicines; communication about complementary medicine use; information sources; and information gaps and needs.
According to preliminary findings, both GPs and pharmacists believe they don't have enough access to evidence-based information about complementary medicines and as a result are not confident discussing the medicines with their patients.
"Our preliminary findings suggest while there is information on complementary medicines out there for health care professionals, the quality is variable and some health professionals may not know how to access evidence-based information from trusted sources," NPS chief executive, Dr Lynn Weekes said.
"GPs and pharmacists are trained to seek evidence. What we are seeing is that the important information for health care professionals is getting lost among all the other information out there, which is impacting on their confidence when it comes to discussing complementary medicines with patients.
"When you couple this with the fact that consumers don't consider complementary medicines to be real medicines and many don't think to tell their GP or pharmacist when they are taking a complementary medicine, it could become a serious issue," Dr Weekes said.
Some pharmacists and GPs involved in the study suggested they lack confidence in discussing complementary medicines with consumers as complementary medicines were not included in their university education, there are limited opportunities for professional development in this area, and there is limited access to high quality information resources. They expressed a need for easily accessible, independent and evidence-based information provided in a range of formats.
The survey also revealed that more than 80 per cent of GPs and community pharmacists feel that complementary medicines need more scientific testing.
Reports on the research findings are due for public release in early December.