Small Business Complementary Medicine: A Profile of Therapists and Their Pathways to Practice

The provision and use of complementary medicine (CM) sector has grown rapidly. Indeed, A. J. Vickers suggests that between 7% and 11% of people visit complementary therapists every year, and K. Thomas et al estimates that 33% of the population have used some form of CM at least once in their lives. Of the 426 respondents, 155 (36.4%) were male, and 269 (63.1%) were female (0.5% non-response). The youngest of the respondents was 25 years old, and the oldest 76 years, the mean age being 46.9 and the standard deviation 10.0. What is therefore immediately striking is the female domination of CM private sector provision and a middle-aged, age profile. In the context of a relative paucity of dedicated research investigation, this paper highlights some broad trends in therapists and their pathways to practice, together with providing some detailed attitudinal data on their motivations and general experiences.