About the Authors

Tobias Sundberg

tobias.sundberg@ki.se

Affiliations Karolinska Institutet, Department of Neurobiology Care Sciences and Society, Division of Nursing, Research Group Integrative Care, Huddinge, Sweden, I C – The Integrative Care Science Center, Järna, Sweden

Max Petzold

Affiliation Centre for Applied Biostatistics, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

Niko Kohls

Affiliations Division Integrative Health Promotion, University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Coburg, Germany, Generation Research Program, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Bad Tölz, Germany, Brain, Mind & Healing Program, Samueli Institute, Alexandria, Virginia, United States of America

Torkel Falkenberg

Affiliations Karolinska Institutet, Department of Neurobiology Care Sciences and Society, Division of Nursing, Research Group Integrative Care, Huddinge, Sweden, I C – The Integrative Care Science Center, Järna, Sweden

Competing Interests

The researchers were independent from the funders but declare the following competing interests. Tobias Sundberg: Institutional grants to I C – The Integrative Care Science Centre from the Mahle (Germany), Ekhaga (Sweden), Vidar (Sweden), Jochnick (the Netherlands) and Gyllenberg (Finland) charitable non-profit foundations, during the conduct of the study. Max Petzold: Personal fees from I C - The Integrative Care Science Centre, for statistical analyses during the conduct of the study. Niko Kohls: No support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work. Torkel Falkenberg: Institutional grants from Ekhaga-, Vidar-, Mahle-, Jochnick-, and Gyllenberg Non Profit Charitable Foundations during the conduct of the study. In addition to being the research constellation leader of the integrative care research group at Karolinska Institutet he is also part time, the director of a charitable non-profit research foundation: I C – The Integrative Care Science Center. The part time work for IC has been scrutinized and is approved by Karolinska Institutet and is in line with the policies for this Governmental body in Sweden. IC which is a unique Swedish forum focusing on complementary, alternative (CAM) and integrative care. The authors conduct research, training and communication activities. The homepage features current policy news, research news and their own service for critical analysis of CAM news in the mass media, CritiCAM. IC seek to contribute to evidence-based health and health care development, including relevant elements of proven complementary, alternative and integrative medicine according to WHO recommendations. The primary target groups are certified health care professionals and decision-makers in Sweden. They do not provide individual patients with medical health care or advice but refer them to their respective physicians. Neither do they supply treatment recommendations in any way. Importantly, the statues for this Non-profit, Charitable Research Foundation, IC, to which they are only accountable to according to Swedish Law, states that they must carry out independent research. Hence, the authors' financing bodies can not and may not influence them in any way. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: TS TF. Performed the experiments: TS MP. Analyzed the data: TS MP. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: TS MP NK. Wrote the paper: TS MP NK TF. Developed the analytic strategy and design: TS TF. Drafted the original paper, data collection and analysis: TS. Headed the team: TF. Led the statistical analysis: MP. Provided methodological advice: NK. Had access to all data and participated in the interpretation of data and re-writing and approved the final paper: TS MP NK TF.