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Outcome and costs of homoeopathic and conventional treatment strategies: a comparative cohort study in patients with chronic disorders.

Witt C, Keil T, Selim D, Roll S, Vance W, Wegscheider K, Willich SN

Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics, Charité University Medical Center, 10098 Berlin, Germany. claudia.witt@charite.de

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effectiveness of homoeopathy versus conventional treatment in routine care. DESIGN: Comparative cohort study. SETTING: Patients with selected chronic diagnoses were enrolled in medical practice. INTERVENTIONS: Conventional treatment or homeopathy. OUTCOME MEASURES: Severity of symptoms assessed by patients and physicians (visual rating scale, 0-10) at baseline, 6 and 12 months and costs. RESULTS: The analyses of 493 patients (315 adults, 178 children) indicated greater improvement in patients' assessments after homoeopathic versus conventional treatment (adults: homeopathy from 5.7 to 3.2; conventional, 5.9-4.4; p=0.002; children from 5.1 to 2.6 and from 4.5 to 3.2). Physician assessments were also more favourable for children who had received homoeopathic treatment (4.6-2.0 and 3.9-2.7; p<0.001). Overall costs showed no significant differences between both treatment groups (adults, 2155 versus 2013, p=0.856; children, 1471 versus 786, p=0.137). CONCLUSION: Patients seeking homoeopathic treatment had a better outcome overall compared with patients on conventional treatment, whereas total costs in both groups were similar.

Published 22 July 2005 in Complement Ther Med, 13(2): 79-86.
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