Healthcare Professions Students' Perceptions of Yoga's Acceptability as a Complementary Treatment

Nearly 38% of U.S. adults use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) approaches to manage a range of physical and emotional health concerns, including pain, anxiety, and depression (Barnes, Bloom, & Nahin, 2007; Unutzer, Klap, & Sturm, 2005). Across the spectrum of healthcare professions, research has implicated yoga as an effective treatment modality for similar conditions, such as chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, and high blood pressure (Williams et al., 2005; Woolery, Myers, Sternlieb, & Zeltzer, 2004). Given yoga’s increasing popularity in healthcare and research, we conducted a survey of approximately 1,500 post-secondary students representing eight different health professions (i.e., Physician’s Assistant, Physical Therapy, Clinical Psychology, Occupational Therapy, Audiology, Optometry, Pharmacy, Speech and Language Therapy, and Healthcare Administration). Data obtained from 493 respondents (34% response rate) explored perceptions about yoga as a viable complementary treatment to which they would refer clients among health professionals in training, also differentiating whether respondents themselves were yogis (actively practicing), contemplators (motivated to practice but no yet doing so), and non-yogis (neither practicing nor planning to). A significant relationship emerged between the reported level of personal yoga practice and willingness to refer patients to yoga as a complementary treatment.  Data also revealed that Occupational Therapy, Physician Assistant, Psychology, and Physical Therapy students were the more likely to refer patients to yoga than Dental Hygiene, Speech and Audiology, and Optometry students.  These findings will be discussed as related to how to make health professionals more aware of the merits of yoga, whether they themselves are yoga practitioners or not, with specific recommendations by health professionals groups.