Özcebe H, Sevencan F. (Department of Public Health, Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey). Evaluation of researches about complementary and alternative medicine in children. Çocuk Sağlığı ve Hastalıkları Dergisi 2009; 52: 183-194. The aim of this research was to evaluate articles on complementary and alternative medicine in children. This descriptive study was conducted in 2008, and included all abstracts about complementary and alternative medicine in children as found in PubMed. In this study, 292 abstracts clinic, randomized controlled, metaanalysis that had English abstracts were included. 16 abstracts that conformed to the criteria were evaluated. Three-fourths of the abstracts (75.0%) were published within the last three years, and over half (62.5%) were descriptive studies. Approximately 38% of the abstracts aimed “to determine the frequency of utilization of complementary and alternative medicine in children”. The frequencies of utilization of complementary and alternative medicine in children varied between 18.4-95.0%. 18.7% of the abstracts reported “the need for new studies to evaluate the effects of complementary and alternative medicine applications in children”. It is recommended that the results of the complementary and alternative medicine studies in children would be evaluated with evidence-based medicine approach.

Keywords: çocuk, tamamlayıcı ve alternatif tıp, makale, PubMed.