Complimentary and Alternative Medicine in Pediatrics, EBP

[WildcatFanRN, BSN, RN]

I'm researching Complimentary and Alternative Medicine use in Pediatrics in regards to evidence based practice guidelines. Anyone work with this? I've found a center attached to the Children's Hospital of Boston, but have yet to find much research. CINHAL and MEDLINE both don't have a lot of information except in music therapy.

Any ideas where else I should look?

[kwinsrn]

I know this is an older post, but I thought I would respond anyway. Hopefully this finds you and can guide others.

Try narrowing your search to a specific CAM and disease process. I know there have been a lot of research in the area of Autism, diabetes, migraine headaches, and food allergies.

The National Institutes of Health Center for CAM has a set of clinical guidelines specific to diseases and disorders, some of which are pediatric specific. They can guide you in narrowing your research terms. http://nccam.nih.gov/health/providers/clinicalpractice.htm

Also, the Society of Integrative Oncology has a document on their website with evidence based recommendations for a variety of CAM therapies. These are adult specific, but could be easily integrated to the pediatric population. The recommendations could aso serve as another starting point to narrow your research terms. I am not sure that I am in agreement with all of their recommendations, however I have only briefly scanned the document. http://www.integrativeonc.org/index.php/sio-publishes-2009-practice-guidelines

Remember even if research has been reviewed and translated to an evidence based guildeline, it is still up to the practicing RN to critique the guideline to determine its usefullness to their practice area. A helpful tool in critiquing clinical practice guidelines is the AGREE tool www.agreecollaboration.org