How many naturopaths are there in australia

Naturopathy is practiced in every world region, spanning over eighty countries. Statutory registration of the naturopathic profession currently exists in jurisdictions in North America, India, Europe and Latin America. The profession is represented globally by the World Naturopathic Federation WNF which aims to promote the highest quality in standards of education and practice of the naturopathic profession through supporting regulation and accreditation of the profession, promoting conferences and research activities, and maintaining a record of Naturopathic organisations who are working to further naturopathy in their respective countries.

WNF works with professional naturopathic associations which support and are working toward regulation in their specific countries. Recognised associations and other groups such as ARONAH who are members of the WNF must also support educational accreditation and advancement of educational standards.

The statutory regulation of naturopathy, like all other health professionals, is strongly correlated with educational standards and is influenced by the political landscape in each country and the regulation of other traditional and complementary systems of medicine in the region.

Australian naturopaths, as a predominantly female profession, work mainly in private clinical practice with nutritional medicine, herbal medicine, homeopathy, as well as massage therapies being the most common modalities used.

There are also signs of greater integration with community pharmacies and integrative medicine clinics in major cities. The Bachelor's degree programs in Naturopathy has just become the only accredited entry-level qualification since late Currently, there are only 5 private colleges offering naturopathic education, a far cry from the 40 over in mid The profession continues to be self-regulated. As the following quote demonstrates, participants thought this professional isolation could affect their practice:.

Some participants perceived that lack of adequate professional leadership and resultant fragmentation deprived the naturopathic profession the opportunity to control its destiny. For example, participants discussed how the product manufacturers had filled the vacuum left by associations and colleges to become major providers of professional education and support for practitioners.

As a result, it was perceived that practitioners were unable to discuss professional or technical issues with independent or professional sources, and that advice sought in this manner quite often ignored naturopathic principles and focused instead on reductionist or protocol based product prescription.

This often left participants feeling conflicted, needing to balance their desire for professional support with ensuring that they are not swayed by any conflicts of interest, as can be observed in the following quote:. One of the prescient issues for naturopaths in the study was the confusion amongst those outside the profession as to precisely what a naturopath actually is or does. As two participants explained:.

As one practitioner explained:. Regulation of the profession was seen by many practitioners as the only way that this challenge could be overcome. As one naturopath explained:. Participants proffered perceived solutions to the challenges facing naturopathy in Australia. Regulation in this sense was used by many practitioners as a comprehensive all-inclusive term of convenience that could also be used to discuss other issues generally considered to be directly related to regulation, such as professionalization, acceptance by the conventional healthcare system and problems in naturopathic education.

The issue of bogus practitioners highlighted an acknowledgement by participants that there were problems within the profession. As one respondent explained:. Naturopaths expressed concerns about the perceived co-option of their professional title, and the devaluation of their profession this enabled, which was somewhat assisted by the fragmentation of their profession. The concerns exhibited by naturopaths in this study, particularly around the loss of the underlying principles and philosophies by which the practitioners define themselves, do not seem isolated to naturopaths, and mirror concerns expressed by CAM therapists in Australia more generally [ 31 ].

However, findings from this study also highlighted the difficulties practitioners have in enabling the public to make distinctions between naturopathic practice and other forms of complementary health care.

Although there was consensus amongst participants about specific naturopathic theory, and they acknowledged that this was re-enforced through every aspect of comprehensive naturopathic training, they acknowledged that the lack of public awareness of naturopathic theory and philosophy as an essential element of practice made it difficult to defend the tenets of the profession.

This also appears to be an issue in the profession internationally, and through initiatives such as the Foundations of Naturopathic Medicine project the profession has recently undertaken significant efforts to codify naturopathic theory and philosophy to address these definitional issues [ 32 ].

However, the unregulated nature of the naturopathic profession in Australia perhaps makes the professional implications of this issue e. In the absence of this core foundational support from professional institutions, it is therefore perhaps unsurprising that the practitioners in this study looked to external regulation to define their roles in the Australian health care system. Given the prominence practitioners place on the specific aspects of the naturopathic approach, further research exploring these specific aspects of the naturopathic approach and identifying what value they may have in health care delivery is warranted.

Regulation formed an integral part of the solution for many of the professional challenges perceived by naturopaths in this study. However, the high level of support for professional regulation exhibited by grassroots practitioners in this and previous studies may directly conflict with opinions held by naturopaths occupying leadership roles within the profession.

Previous qualitative exploration of naturopaths with senior roles in professional associations in Australia suggests that these practitioners exhibit a negative attitude towards statutory regulation [ 27 ].

Additionally, the concerns of erosion of naturopathic principles and philosophy also do not seem to be shared by naturopaths in professional leadership.

For example, in some instances, professional associations are actively promoting the co-option of naturopathic medicine by broader natural medicine practitioners, who may not have philosophically-based naturopathic training [ 34 , 35 ]. Divergent views on issues considered important by grass-roots practitioners in this study and those in professional leadership roles may be an underlying factor behind the professional isolation and frustrations felt by naturopaths in this study, and deserve closer attention.

Legislation which mandates professional association membership may also mean that professional associations are not compelled to represent practitioner interests. Divergent views between grassroots naturopathic practitioners and naturopaths with leadership roles in the profession may also be suggestive of generational differences between the two groups.

Most naturopaths in current practice have graduated since , the year naturopathic training was first offered at a degree level in public universities, whilst naturopaths who have dominated professional leadership positions predominantly graduated before this time, usually from individually-owned smaller proprietary colleges [ 12 ]. Post graduates are more likely to have received extensive biomedical and scientific training, which results in a less adversarial approach to working with the conventional health sector [ 26 , 27 ].

Commentators have suggested that protection of financial self-interest through college ownership, or protecting the political power of professional associations by controlling registration and accreditation of practitioners are often the primary reasons for those in professional leadership roles to resist regulation [ 12 — 15 , 33 ].

Although the discrepancy between grassroots and professional leadership opinion is particularly evident in the regulation debate — which seems the most heated contemporary debate among naturopaths in Australia [ 27 ] — it may be present in many professional issues.

Practitioners in this study seemed resigned to not being represented by their professional representatives, and therefore support for regulation may be totemic of support for a newer, and more inclusive, professional hierarchy within the profession.

In addition to concerns on professional issues, practitioners in this study also identified challenges that were more concerned with clinical practice.

Respondents expressed concern at the growing influence of manufactured CAM product in their practice. Although the naturopaths in this study highlight concerns about uncritical acceptance of a dogmatic EBM model and the negative effects this could have on naturopathic practice, they also incorporated a broadly positive view of an increasingly scientific approach to naturopathic training and practice, which incorporates increased biomedical training.

These findings seems consistent with previous studies of naturopathic perspectives of science and evidence, which demonstrate naturopaths exhibit a complex and critical approach to evaluating and incorporating scientific and evidence-based perspectives in practice [ 21 , 46 ]. In fact, some commentators have highlighted that there are numerous opportunities in EBM for naturopathy, but that evaluation simply requires the appropriate evidentiary tools, many of which already exist in numerous underutilised conventional health research methodological approaches [ 48 , 49 ].

What seems more evident amongst naturopathic practitioners in this study is a desire for a critical approach to the application of evidence and biomedicine to naturopathic practice — one that enriches naturopathic practice rather than replaces it.

Increased research and a larger evidence base is a goal that naturopathic practitioners seem amenable to, though they desire the development of an evidence-base that accurately reflects their practice rather than one that is imposed and ignores the underlying philosophies that define their health care approach. These goals can be observed in the professions attempts to build research capacity and develop an international research agenda for naturopathic medicine, and their attempts to embrace this development as a necessary foundation for the future development of the profession [ 50 ].

As an exploratory study, this research draws upon a self-selected sample of naturopathic practitioners in one region of Australia. More research, both qualitative and quantitative, is needed to corroborate the findings of this study.

Given the significant role that naturopaths play in healthcare delivery in Australia, it is imperative that further research is conducted on naturopaths and their practice.

Naturopathy in Australia is currently facing internal and external challenges. Further investigation of significant practice and policy implications of these challenges is critical to understanding the impact that these have on naturopathic healthcare delivery and the naturopathic profession.

Given the increasingly mainstream role that naturopaths are playing in the healthcare system in Australia, it is imperative that some of the issues of concern raised by naturopaths receive appropriate policy focus.

This may include the development of appropriate regulatory regimes and the development of minimum standards of practice and education that value traditional naturopathic principles and philosophies, as well as ensuring ethical and effective clinical practice. J Altern Complemen Med. Article Google Scholar. Glucosamine and chondroitin in arthritis treatment Complementary Medicine February 25, ,. Colds, flu and complementary medicines Complementary Medicine October 31, ,.

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