Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Therapeutic Fasting Among Naturopathy Physicians: A Cross Sectional National Survey

Introduction: fasting is a common ingredient of naturopathic prescription in india. however no studies have been conducted to establish the use, approach of naturopathy physicians towards fasting. the present study, a cross sectional survey was conducted to assess the attitude, use, belief and understanding about therapeutic fasting among the naturopathy physicians in india.methods: a 12 item e-mail based questionnaire was sent among 334 naturopathy physicians, which were designed to obtain demographic data, practice characteristics and multiple choice and multiple response close-ended questions along with an open-response final question. survey questionnaire data was analyzed using descriptive statistics via frequency distribution and cross tabulations.results: a convenient sample of total 257 participants was collected. majority of the respondents were private practitioners with an average experience of 5 years. 50% of the total population confirms the use of fasting in their daily prescription which is mostly for 1-5 days (54%) and for all diseases (38.5%). physicians mostly prescribe short term mono fasting with fruits or juices (42.8%) along with all other modalities (61.5%) to get desired effect. the end results of fasting therapy was quoted as satisfactory (51.7%) whereas the misconceptions of the patients was a challenge for 1/3rd and most of them find it easy to administer in adults (85%).conclusion: naturopathy physicians use fasting as a first line management in almost all chronic and acute diseases. however there is a need for strengthening the evidence based practice to bestow better care.