Religion and health are subjects that are in interaction with each other for centuries within human behaviors. Radical changes about the information production especially in the last century profoundly affect the knowledge of health. Orthodox medicine, in other words Western medicine, shaped in modern times also with the effect of positivism, aims a universal, tangible and evidence based information. Traditional medicine, being dominant prior to 19th century and continue its activities under the counter together with modern medicine, known also as folk medicine, takes care of psycho-social factors as well as local health knowledge during the treatment process. Traditional medicine, also named as medicine based on belief, gain currency again with its forms accepted by distinct circles as alternative, complementary and holistic medicine. Here, how the “traditional” statement is filled with, is an important point. The content of belief is quite extensive whether it is religious or moral, it involves the system of values that shapes human thought, feeling and behavior. Health experience based on belief is one of the widely spoken subjects because individuals’ belief in recovery and religious belief that feeds recovery in different kinds of ways contributes positively to the process of coping with the present situation. Conducted studies show that positive or negative coping manners of patients during the treatment period affect the recovery period. Within the frame of traditional medicine definitions used in our society, it is possible to witness this situation. Traditional medicine that is intensely internalized with life within Turkish culture with the holistic effect of Islam, sometimes feed on religious fact and experiences (mostly with the effect of culture). In our opinion, if we look at printed, visual and social media, some GETAT practices in our country can be related with a religious reason, result or period in the eye of society with the intense effect of religion prevalent in its own tradition. Any GETAT practice can be presented in a religious health experience by being correlated with a religious interaction directly or indirectly. It can be said that one of the factors that give rise to the association of them is the fragmentary approach in current health definitions. Academic and individual interest in spiritual support and care service is revealed in many studies made in psychology of religion field. The results of this research that deals with the relationship between religion and health show that spiritual health needs to be supported by emphasizing the effective position of religious beliefs in coping with hardship, despair and hopelessness or in gaining physical health with a holistic health manner.
Objective: From this point of view, the aim of this article is to identify how the healthcare professionals (doctor, medical student and pharmacist), patients and SCC specialists a) make the definition of traditional and complementary medicine, b) how they view the attitude of individuals towards eating and drinking habits prescribed by traditional treatment in order to recover their health, c) what they perceive as effective in the preference of this practices, d) whether they associate GETAT practices and religious belief and lastly how they deal with the connection between belief and health.
Method: In this article that is built in qualitative research pattern as a case study, the data has been collected with semi-structured interview form. As the subject area of GETAT practices are quite extensive, in order to limit the content and deal with the field study within the frame of article, we focus on herbal orientations of eating-drinking habits which are mostly preferred within GETAT practices. The usage of herbal products and nutrition support is the most common GETAT practice in our country as it is all over the world. The study group of this research is comprised of twenty-three person (age between seventeen and fifty-nine, thirteen female and ten male); patients, healthcare professionals (doctors, pharmacists, medical students) and SCC specialists. In order to comprise this group, maximum variety sampling is used within purposeful sampling. Researcher may want to obtain more qualitative information by bringing some criterions in order to analyze the subject more deeply while determining the groups. This measure belongs to sampling method. As a result of this, participants in patients group are subjected to the condition of receiving a treatment for a long time and having applied to GETAT practices. On the condition that main frame remains same while collecting data, with the regulations made according to the qualities of groups, three different kinds of semi-structured interview form has been designed. While preparing the forms, sources about GETAT and news on social media are searched and then pre-interviews have been made in order to take healthcare professionals’ distinct opinions about the subject. Designed questionnaire forms undergo from the investigation of two specialists, needed additions and corrections have been made and then the form has been put into its final form. Data was collected in September and October 2018. Each interview took thirty minutes in average, face to face or telephone interviews are recorded. Records are decoded after the completion of interviews, data are analyzed with descriptive analysis and four main themes are composed.
Findings: It is found that healthcare professionals comprised of doctor, pharmacist and medical students define GETAT as; traditional medicine, complementary medicine, folk medicine, alternative medicine, old or cultural treatment, protective medicine, practices other than positive medicine, holistic medicine and medicine that regulates cuisine culture, practices based on populist approach. As a result, it can be said that healthcare professionals are usually against the use of the “alternative medicine” term and partly against the term of “complementary medicine”; they see “holistic medicine” and “traditional medicine” concepts more reasonable. The most common usage between patients is the use of the term “alternative medicine” so it suggests that they see this approach not as a conceptual thing but more as a discussion of paradigm. The most serious and rigid criticism of healthcare professionals against GETAT is; its (can) not being built upon proof, not appropriate for scientific criteria, its way of the coming to the result circumstantially with morale/motivation/belief, so being built upon placebo, its being frivolous due to the unrepeatable drug result/distinct from ethics of science, being open to abuse due to its non-radical and informal education. It is observed that SCC specialists do not have enough information about GETAT other than its daily life practices. They do not want to present their opinion about the subject because they have not provided legitimacy yet in health field. They are on the side of religious and spiritual well-being. As a result they do not want to be seen biased by healthcare professionals who see traditional medicine as a religious based medicine. While patients associate belief and health relation more with their religious beliefs, healthcare professionals perceive this relation more as a belief in treatment and doctor. Consequently, it is observed that while patients and SCC specialists evaluate GETAT as immanent with religious life, healthcare professionals perceive GETAT as a health tendency open to be abused by religious circles. In general, doctors and pharmacists support GETAT trainings because knowledge that belongs to tradition cannot be ignored but they also think that reconciliation in education and inspection of the field is necessary.
Result: It is possible to say that health behavior is in relation with belief both in evidence based and belief based medicine. Apart from this, it is found that there are some points in which religious life contacts with health and dynamism in health paradigm turns to religious life relation. It must be analyzed with detailed field studies enriched with quantitative and qualitative researches about what are these points and what kind of an interaction is present between them.
