Jorjani Biomedicine Journal

en Methodological and Ethical Challenges for the Implementation of Complementary and Alternative Medicine-Related Clinical Trials: Review of Reviews پزشکی عمومى General medicine مروری Review Article <div style="text-align: justify;"><a name="_Hlk111048336">Background and Objectives:</a> The implementation of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has increased in recent decades. Due to the positive effects of CAM interventions, 5 to 74.8% of people use these treatments worldwide. However, implementing CAM-related clinical trials is associated with challenging issues. Failure to address these challenges can lead to poor quality of studies, publication of non-scientific findings, and ultimately disregard for human rights and ethics. This review aims to comprehensively review the literature focusing on methodological and ethical challenges for implementing CAM-related clinical trials. Material and Methods: This review of reviews was conducted via international databases, including PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, and Scopus using keywords extracted from medical subject headings such as “Methods”, “Methodological Study”, “Methodological Studies”, “Ethics”, “Complementary Therapies”, “Complementary Medicine”, “Alternative Medicine”, “Clinical Trial”, and “review” from the earliest to May 1, 2022. Results: In general, challenging issues for the implementation of CAM-related clinical trials can be divided into two categories: 1) methodological and 2) ethical. Methodological challenges included: Risk of bias, Lack of knowledge of researchers, and Blinding. On the other hand, ethical challenges in clinical trial studies are divided into two categories: patients' rights and placebo use. Conclusion: Overall, the present study emphasizes the need for special attention to the quality of CAM-related clinical trials. Also, this study can pioneer the introduction of critical challenging issues in CAM-related clinical trials and provide appropriate suggestions for researchers to solve these issues in future studies. </div> Methods,Complementary Therapies,Ethics,Clinical Trial, 61 69 http://goums.ac.ir/jorjanijournal/browse.php?a_code=A-10-842-4&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Nazila Javadi-Pashaki n.javadip@gmail.com 10031947532846008401 000000018508946X No 1. Social Determinants of Health Research Center (SDHRC), Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran/ 2. Department of Nursing, Cardiovascular Diseases Research Center, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran Hamidreza Mehrabi mehrabi.hr@gmail.com 10031947532846008402 10031947532846008402 No Student Research Committee, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran Iman Asdaghijahromi 10031947532846008403 10031947532846008403 No Department of Anesthesiology, Faculty of Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran Seyedeh Mahjabin Taheri Otaghsara elmira.taheri722@gmail.com 10031947532846008404 10031947532846008404 No Student Research Committee, Nasibeh School of Nursing and Midwifery, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran Mohammad Javad Ghazanfari javad.ghazanfari12@gmail.com 10031947532846008405 0000000335556044 No Department of Medical-Surgical Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran Pooyan Ghorbani Vajargah Poyan.ghorbani@gmail.com 10031947532846008406 0000000333652681 No Department of Medical-Surgical Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran Amirabbas Mollaei Mollaiamirabbas@gmail.com 10031947532846008407 0000000208413091 No Department of Medical-Surgical Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran Atefeh Falakdami atefeh.f7575@gmail.com 10031947532846008408 0000000151258632 No Department of Medical-Surgical Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran Poorya Takasi pooryapin380@gmail.com 10031947532846008409 0000000337883049 No Department of Medical-Surgical Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran Aghil Mollaei aghil.mollaei@gmail.com 10031947532846008410 0000000232348736 No Department of Biostatistics, School of Health, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran Hatef Mashhadi hatef.mashhadi@gmail.com 10031947532846008411 10031947532846008411 No Department of Geriatrics, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran Samad Karkhah sami.karkhah@yahoo.com 10031947532846008412 0000000191939176 Yes 1. Department of Medical-Surgical Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran/ 2. Burn and Regenerative Medicine Research Center, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran