Quick Natural Cure-Alls: Portrayal of Traditional, Complementary, and Alternative Medicine in Serbian Online Media

To describe how Serbian online media cover the topic of traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine (TM/CAM), we conducted a content analysis of 182 articles from six news and six magazine websites, published July-December 2021. Biologically based treatments, predominantly herbal products framed as Serbian or Russian folk medicine, were the most common (70.9%, 205/289 practices). The practices were often presented as general health enhancers (18.4%, 71/386 claims); other common reasons given for the use of TM/CAM were to alleviate respiratory problems, boost the immunity, and detox. The tone was overwhelmingly positive, with most of the positive articles (82.4%, 145/176) neglecting to present information on potential harms of TM/CAM use. Few articles provided a recommendation to speak with a healthcare provider (13.6%, 24/176); in contrast, the recommended dosage was often explained (59.7%, 105/176). TM/CAM practitioners (15.9%, 28/176) and conventional medicine practitioners (12.5%, 22/176) were most commonly cited sources. Articles tended to appeal to TM/CAM's tradition of use (65.3%, 115/176), naturalness (45.5%, 80/176), and convenience (40.9%, 72/176), used pseudoscientific jargon (59.7%, 105/176), and failed to cite sources for the claims that TM/CAM use is supported by science (22.2%, 39/176). Much of the information provided in Serbian online media seems to be uncritical, with a potential for misleading consumers.