The World Health Organization (WHO) data show that more than half of all medicines are used inappropriately worldwide, and one-third of the world's population does not have access to essential medicines (World Health Assembly, 2005). The inappropriate use of drugs or inaccessibility to drugs, diseases for which modern medicine cannot find a cure, drug interactions and side effects, and insufficient success in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases are among the factors that lead patients and healthcare professionals to seek different treatment approaches (World Health Organization, 2000).

The use of complementary medicine is increasing worldwide and has become an important issue for clinicians of all specialties (Ernst, 2000, Bedi and Shenefelt, 2002). The lifetime prevalence of these applications ranges from 35% to 69%, and the most commonly used complementary medical treatment models appear to be homeopathy, phytotherapy, and food supplements (Ernst, 2000). Although the frequency of complementary medicine use is not clearly known in many countries, many patients patronise such practices with modern medical treatment options (Kurt et al., 2004, Algier et al., 2005), partly because of difficulties faced in accessing healthcare (Antonio et al., 2014). In some countries, the terms "complementary medicine" and "alternative medicine" are often used instead of the term "traditional medicine".’ However, there are differences between these terms. According to the WHO, traditional medicine is “the whole of knowledge, skills, and practices that can be explained or not, based on theories, beliefs, and experiences specific to different cultures, which are used in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental diseases, as well as in maintaining good health”, and such practices have a long history (World Health Organization, 2000).

According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) in the USA, the use of traditional and complementary medicine practices, together with modern medicine, is referred to as complementary medicine. The use of traditional and complementary medicine practices rather than modern medicine applications is called alternative medicine. However, the NCCIH has found it more appropriate to use the term integrative medicine, which means improving the health of people holistically in a coordinated manner, rather than treating only a single organ or disease (Mollahaliloğlu et al., 2015).

Most family physicians have limited knowledge of integrative medical practices, and their views and attitudes toward these practices may vary (Joos et al., 2011, Gamsizkan et al., 2011). Considering that attitudes are one of the important psychological variables formed as a result of the lives and experiences of the physicians and these guide their behaviors (Rocklage and Fazio, 2018), revealing the attitudes of healthcare professionals toward phytotherapy practices; and determining the variables affecting these attitudes, are important for the wide adoption of these practices.

This study aimed to determine the attitudes of physician candidates to phytotherapy applications and the variables that affect their attitudes.