Patterns of conventional and complementary non-pharmacological health practice use by US military veterans: a cross-sectional latent class analysis

Table 2 Self-reported past-year use of Health Practices Inventory approaches by Minnesota National Guard Veterans (N = 1825), who participated in the mailed survey conducted from October 2015 to September 2016

Health practice^a	%	n	Reason for use^b						Past month frequency of use^c
			Well-being/ general health		Treat pain		Treat another condition		None		Several days		More
			%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n
Acupuncture	5%	86	37%	32	72%	62	22%	19	69%	59	28%	24	0%	0
Biofeedback	2%	30	70%	21	13%	4	17%	5	47%	14	33%	10	13%	4
Chiropractic	32%	578	31%	179	83%	477	8%	47	46%	268	46%	266	2%	14
Massage	24%	431	52%	226	63%	272	8%	35	56%	242	33%	144	2%	9
Manual physical therapy	13%	242	15%	37	80%	193	12%	30	41%	100	43%	105	8%	20
Healing Touch/Reiki	1%	21	52%	11	52%	11	38%	8	48%	10	43%	9	5%	1
Hypnotherapy	1%	9	33%	3	22%	2	44%	4	67%	6	0%	0	22%	2
Psychotherapy	13%	233	54%	125	9%	22	50%	116	39%	91	46%	107	5%	12
Support groups	4%	79	62%	49	8%	6	39%	31	30%	24	46%	36	13%	10
Spiritual/traditional healing system	6%	115	78%	90	14%	16	29%	33	10%	11	39%	45	44%	51
Relaxation	18%	335	63%	212	19%	65	37%	125	13%	42	54%	182	25%	84
Meditation/Mindfulness	10%	190	74%	140	12%	22	32%	60	10%	19	52%	99	25%	47
Yoga	10%	174	85%	148	33%	58	14%	24	31%	54	50%	87	8%	14
Tai Chi/Qi Gong	1%	15	87%	13	33%	5	7%	1	27%	4	33%	5	13%	2
Strength/stretch exercise	44%	799	76%	604	34%	269	10%	78	9%	69	37%	296	45%	360
Aerobic exercise	36%	661	88%	580	12%	80	9%	56	4%	28	42%	278	45%	300
Diet	7%	120	77%	92	21%	25	19%	23	9%	11	18%	21	63%	76
Herbal supplement	10%	175	80%	140	15%	27	19%	34	5%	8	26%	46	60%	105
Homeopathy	1%	25	60%	15	44%	11	40%	10	36%	9	32%	8	28%	7

The practices are listed in the order they appear in the survey (Additional file 1: Figure S1, for full text of the Health Practices Inventory)
^aThe Health Practices Inventory approaches are grouped based on the a priori categorization described in the text; a summary variable was created for each of the groupings indicating use of any of the modalities in that group
^bParticipants who reported using a Health Practices Inventory modality were asked to identify their reason(s) for using it; the reasons are not mutually exclusive and they could pick any combination of the 3 reasons listed or none at all
^cParticipants who reported using a Health Practices Inventory modality were asked to identify the frequency they used it in the past month; these frequencies are mutually exclusive but do not always add up to 100% because of missingness

ISSN: 2662-7671