Methodological Aspects of the Evaluation of Efficacy of the Homeopathic Treatment of Menstrual Cycle Disorders

Author(s): Schmück, M., Gerhard, I.

Abstract: There is an ongoing discussion, whether and how the efficacy of homeopathic treatments can be assessed. Our paper discusses from a biometrical point of view why menstrual cycle disorders are not an adequate indication to evaluate a homeopathic constitutional therapy with individual remedies. The common randomized design raises problems in defining adequate outcome criteria and probably leads to a high amount of non-compliance. Common strategies to overcome such problems, i. e. multicenter design and raised patient numbers, fail because of the specific circumstances of research in unconventional medicine. In our paper we describe why we finally stopped our project. By using only study-specific arguments we simultaneously object to a global non-acceptance of biometrical methods in homeopathic research. We only should decide individually when we leave a biometrical standard reasonably.

Keyword(s): Homöopathie

Zurück | Weiter