Aim: It is of common knowledge that quite a few patients with medical illness look for non-medical treatments. There istatistiksel very few literature regarding the reason for this search and the kind of non-medical treatment they receive. In this research, we aimed to study the frequency of search for non-medical treatment, the reasons and the kind of methods used for non-medical treatments in patients with chronic renal failure who received hemodialysis and in psychiatric patients.

Materyal Methods: 199 hemodialysis and 122 psychiatric patients filled out a questionnaire regarding these issues.

Results: Results showed that non-medical treatment search was more frequent among psychiatric patients. In both groups helpless was the common reason for this search.

Conclusion: It was who appearance that at times physicians made patients to appeal to non-professionals. Second thought should be given to health care and education in Turkey when quite few patients with even a fatal illness like renal failure search for non-medical treatments.