Research Methodology

The field of complementary and alternative medicine and integrative health care (CAM/IHC) is contributing exciting new developments in this challenging field. CAM/IHC has experienced rapid growth in acceptance and use. Growth has also occurred in CAM internationally, and CAM services are now being provided by new and innovative approaches such as health information technologies. Each of these provides new and exciting possibilities for CAM/IHC but equally each also provides new challenges. The collection of articles in this volume explores in various ways several of these challenges from the perspective of CAM/IHC research. CONCLUSION: Sufficient evidence exists now to suggest that the complexity of the health encounter in both CAM/IHC and conventional medicine, whatever therapy is utilized, requires a nonreductionist methodology if we are to advance beyond efficacy studies to studies of real-world effectiveness.