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This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 141 ture and regions, but the most common type of CAM used in Korean IBD patients were herbal remedies in this study. In light of the observed 80.7% use of herbal remedies and 67.0% use of nutrition and diet supplements in IBD patients, it is not surprising to find that nearly 2 in 3 IBD patients was taking herbs, nutrition and diet supplements, or both. It was consistent with a previous Korean study reporting that 64.8% of IBD patients have CAM products. In other Korean survey, the most common type of CAM used were also vitamin complex (33.3%) and red ginseng (25.0%) in IBD patients. Therefore, physicians need to understand that IBD patients may use CAM in real world, because they experienced lack of response to conventional therapies, want to perceive favorable safety profile and a sense of greater control over their disease. The risk factors for CAM use included high education level, high income level, prior side effect to conventional therapies, longer duration of IBD and prior use of corticosteroids. Despite the dramatic increases in CAM use, a major concern is that the extent to which patient discloses their CAM use to their physicians remains low. Only 28.7% of CAM uses were disclosed to a physician in previous study. It may be risky because 13.9% of IBD patients have withdrawn their conventional therapies during CAM use. It would be overly simplistic to blame either the patient or their physician for this inadequacy in patient-physician communication. Shared decision makpISSN 1598-9100 • eISSN 2288-1956 https://doi.org/10.5217/ir.2020.00022 Intest Res 2020;18(2):141-143