Adaptation of the NAFKAM International Complementary and Alternative Medicine Questionnaire (ICAM-Q) to ICAM-Q -NG for assessment of CAM use in Nigeria

Abstract

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) continues to increase globally so also is the need for accurate assessment of its use among different populations. The aim of the study was to adapt and validate the Nigerian version of ICAM-Q named ICAM-Q-NG. The development and validation process of ICAM-Q-NG are described in this paper. ICAM-Q-NG was tested among 384 adult patients attending the General Outpatients Clinics of the Kwara State University Teaching Hospital, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria. The description of the ICAM-Q-NG measurement properties, and the analysis of the validity study are presented in this work. The collected data was entered into IBM SPSS version 23 Statistical software for data analysis. P-value that was equal or lesser than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. The mean time taken for the participants to complete answering the ICAM-Q-NG in those who self-administered it was 14.92 min while it took 16.54 min on the average for those who received interviewer administration. The difference in completion time between the two administration modes was not statistically significant ( t = − 1.38, df = 352, P = 0.169). Less than half of the participants saw at least one CAM practitioner over a 12-month period (43.4%) of which majority of them saw herbalists (28.7%) and supplement vendors (14.5%). ICAM-Q-NG has demonstrated preliminary face and content validity and acceptable feasibility in a pilot sample. We are confident that all the amendments made to the final version of ICAM-Q-NG would further increase its validity and usability.