Operational definition of complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine derived from a systematic search
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Identifying what therapies constitute complementary, alternative, and/or integrative medicine (CAIM) is complex for a multitude of reasons. An operational definition is dynamic, and changes based on both historical time period and geographical location whereby many jurisdictions may integrate or consider their traditional system(s) of medicine as conventional care. To date, only one operational definition of "complementary and alternative medicine" has been proposed, by Cochrane researchers in 2011. This definition is not only over a decade old but also did not use systematic methods to compile the therapies. Furthermore, it did not capture the concept "integrative medicine", which is an increasingly popular aspect of the use of complementary therapies in practice. An updated operational definition reflective of CAIM is warranted given the rapidly increasing body of CAIM research literature published each year. METHODS: Four peer-reviewed or otherwise quality-assessed information resource types were used to inform the development of the operational definition: peer-reviewed articles resulting from searches across seven academic databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, AMED, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Scopus and Web of Science); the "aims and scope" webpages of peer-reviewed CAIM journals; CAIM entries found in online encyclopedias, and highly-ranked websites identified through searches of CAIM-related terms on HONcode. Screening of eligible resources, and data extraction of CAIM therapies across them, were each conducted independently and in duplicate. CAIM therapies across eligible sources were deduplicated. RESULTS: A total of 101 eligible resources were identified: peer-reviewed articles (n = 19), journal "aims and scope" webpages (n = 22), encyclopedia entries (n = 11), and HONcode-searched websites (n = 49). Six hundred four unique CAIM terms were included in this operational definition. CONCLUSIONS: This updated operational definition is the first to be informed by systematic methods, and could support the harmonization of CAIM-related research through the provision of a standard of classification, as well as support improved collaboration between different research groups.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.089 | 0.320 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.007 | 0.007 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.079 | 0.072 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.010 |
| Open science | 0.005 | 0.009 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".