China and India, for example, have developed very sophisticated systems such as acupuncture and ayurvedic medicine. In practice, the term "traditional medicine" refers to the following components: acupuncture, traditional birth attendants, mental healers and herbal medicine.
Over the years, the World Health Assembly has adopted a number of resolutions drawing attention to the fact that most of the populations in various developing countries around the world depends on traditional medicine for primary health care, that the work force represented by practitioners of traditional medicine is a potentially important resource for the delivery of health care and that medicinal plants are of great importance to the health of individuals and communities. Through its Traditional Medicine Programme, the World Health Organization WHO supports Member States in their efforts to formulate national policies on traditional medicine, to study the potential usefulness of traditional medicine including evaluation of practices and examination of the safety and efficacy of remedies, to upgrade the knowledge of traditional and modern health practitioners, as well as to educate and inform the general public about proven traditional health practices.
A genuine interest in various traditional practices now exists among practitioners of modern medicine and growing numbers of practitioners of traditional, indigenous or alternative systems are beginning to accept and use some of the modern technology. This will help foster teamwork among all categories of health workers within the framework of primary health care. The reasons for the inclusion of traditional healers in primary health care are manifold: the healers know the sociocultural background of the people; they are highly respected and experienced in their work; economic considerations; the distances to be covered in some countries; the strength of traditional beliefs; the shortage of health professionals, particularly in rural areas, to name just a few.
A large proportion of the population in a number of developing countries still relies on traditional practitioners, including traditional birth attendants, herbalists and bone-setters and on local medicinal plants to satisfy their primary health care needs. Traditional medicine has maintained its popularity in a number of Asian countries, such as China, India, Japan and Pakistan. In Japan, from to , there was a fold increase in Kampoh "Chinese method" medicinal preparations in comparison with only 2.
The Japanese per capita consumption of herbal medicine appears to be the highest in the world. During the last decade, there has also been a growing interest in traditional and alternative systems of medicine in many developed countries. Because they are from the community, traditional healers usually know their patients personally, and are well acquainted with their backgrounds, lifestyles and cultural beliefs.
Another benefit of traditional medicine is that it is decentralized: it is easily and quickly available to individuals for whom traveling to urban centers for treatment is inconvenient, time-consuming and costly.
Some observers claim that successful moves to incorporate modern technology and medicine in traditional societies create needs for traditional practice. Urban living in particular creates conditions that hatch those stress-related diseases often most effectively treated by traditional practitioners, such as gastric and duodenal ulcers, migraines, dermatitis, limb pains and certain kinds of paralysis and hypertension.
Thus, in some cases at least, traditional medicine tends to thrive in conjunction with Westernization, modernization and urbanization, as in the case of countries such as Ghana and Nigeria.
In light of the benefits of traditional medicine, many Asian, African and South American countries have allowed the development of a dual system of medical care in which individuals can choose whether they visit traditional or Western clinics. The same individual may choose one type of clinic for some diseases and another for other diseases. For example, in Costa Rica individuals tend to go to folk practitioners for culturally specific diseases such as quebranto, aire, pegas or nervios and chronic diseases.
For preventive health care, such as immunization and nutritional instruction, however, government-sponsored clinics in rural communities attract as much as 90 percent of the population.
Traditional practitioners frequently adapt their practices in order to attract a larger clientele from a more diverse population. For example, practitioners in an urban setting in Ghana have added waiting rooms, telephones, visiting cards, white overall coats and sign boards to advertise available services. Traditional herbs and herbal combinations are packaged in the form of powders, capsules, salves and tonics to be self-administered. In addition, patients are referred to Western-style clinics for certain problems.
In some countries, such as China, the government itself has promoted a duel system in which paramedical personnel originally called "barefoot doctors" in China are trained in both traditional and modern orthodox diagnostic and treatment procedures. Although barefoot doctor program in China has been replaced by a "village doctor program. A Nigerian example is provided by Dr. Mume, who had practiced traditional medicine for several years when he heard of a School of Natural Therapeutics being established in Lagos.
After studying at this school, Dr. Mume said, "I returned home to Ekakpanre and started afresh, and with the knowledge gained from the school at Lagos, I started to plan, to meditate, to read, to develop and improve upon my traditional herbal products which I prepared in powdered and liquid forms.
Eventually in Dr. Mume established a clinic, where he continued to administer traditional treatment in a way that was attracted a wide spectrum of both rural and urban clients. Russell Willier, a Cree healer from northern Alberta, Canada, although unaware of the innovations of traditional healers from countries such as Ghana, is in the process of adapting his practices to the modern world. In , he permitted documentation of his treatment of psoriasis, a chronic skin disease. Eleven patients one of whom dropped out were recruited and the experiment was systematically documented using videotape and photographs.
Treatment consisted of native religious rituals and the administration of herbal medicines at a health clinic in downtown Edmonton. Six of the 10 patients experienced improvement in varying degrees over the course of the experiment. The response of the healer to the results of this experiment are interesting.
Despite his modest success, he is disappointed that the result were not more spectacular. A systematic random sampling technique was used to select households. The first household was selected from the list of initial 6 households by lottery method.
Then every 6th household was selected and adults in the household were interviewed. In the presence of more than one adult the woman was interviewed as women took the highest responsibility in the care of family members. In the absence of woman, the husband or other adults were interviewed.
Data were collected using structured interviewer administered questionnaire adapted from standardized questionnaires used by international organizations, national studies such as Demographic and Health Survey, and published articles in peer-reviewed journals. Data were collected by trained data collectors using face-to-face interview.
Intensive training was provided to data collectors about data collection techniques. Detail orientation was given to the data collectors about the study before data collection procedure starts.
A translation of data collection instruments into local language was done. The outcome variables of the study were knowledge, attitude, and utilization of the community on TMs.
The explanatory variables were age of interviewee, monthly family income, educational status, distance from nearby health facility, and membership of community health insurance. Data were checked for completeness and consistency and entered into SPSS version 20 by principal investigators, cleaned, and analyzed.
The results were presented using simple frequencies with percentages in appropriate tables to display the descriptive part of the result.
Five yes or no questions were asked for each respondent regarding harmful TMs, side effects of TMs, and importance of training about TMs. The number of questions for which the respondent gave correct responses was counted and scored.
This score was then pooled together and the mean score was computed to determine the overall knowledge of respondents; respondents who score greater than or equal to the mean value were grouped to have good knowledge and and those who score less than the mean value poor knowledge level. The attitude of the respondents was assessed using eight yes or no questions focusing on the history of training about TM, recommending these methods to the others, effectiveness of methods for applied cases, interest to learn TCM, and choice of training methods.
Each participant of the study was informed about confidentiality. Each participant of the study agreed to participate voluntarily. Participants were allowed to discontinue the interview when they needed.
All participants of the study declared their willingness to participate and approved by their verbal consents. A total of respondents, with a response rate of Among the participants, were females Ages of participants ranged from 18 to 85 mean age of the participants was years. From the total respondents about 75 With respect to income 83 Large number of respondents, Two The mean value knowledge score was 4.
The data in Table 2 shows that Most of the respondents However, Two hundred eighty-one Regarding the effectiveness of the TMs, Only 75 Sixty nine Majority, About Furthermore, out of herbal medication users, Only 22 5. Aspirin, Paracetamol, Amoxicillin, and antacids are the commonest drugs used with TMs. Eighty-nine The reported adverse effects include bleeding, abortion, visual loss, tetanus, jaundice, fistula, gastritis, psychosis, exacerbation of illness, paralysis, and even death Table 3.
There was significant association between KAP scores and age , specially with age group between 18 and 28 and 29 and 38 and 0. Educational status was also significantly associated with KAP scores. Moreover, occupation and effectiveness of TMs 0. The prevalence of TM use in our study is This is probably due to the sample size difference where the later takes large sample size.
The wider acceptability of traditional medicine in the town is because of cultural acceptability, easy accessibility, and affordability of traditional medicine compared to modern medicines and facilities [ 10 , 14 ]. This shows that as the level education of mother increased the use of harmful traditional medicine practice decreased, in addition to the fact that TMs vary together with cultural diversity of the country.
Our study revealed that The discrepancy in the results between the two studies might be associated with mainly the time gap in which the studies are conducted which changes the awareness of the population about traditional medicine and coverage of modern health care.
The socioeconomic differences between the two towns Lagos is the capital city of Nigeria, while Merawi is a Woreda town might also contribute to the observed differences. Our study also indicated that more than two-thirds Moreover, These findings show that most of the participants in the study had positive attitude toward traditional medicine. The participants have reported that they use many plant products for different disorders.
The people prepare the plants in different dosage forms liquid, solid, and gaseous forms and administer them by mixing with water, tea, egg, and honey or without any mixing. Different studies also reported similar practices [ 17 , 18 ]. The plant preparations are mainly used once daily for few days ranges from 1 day to 6 months.
Most commonly used routes of administration are oral, topical, and inhalational routes of administration. Previous studies reported that oral, dermal, and nasal routes are the three most commonly used routes of administration which is in line with our study [ 18 — 20 ]. Many diseases such as headache, cough, peptic ulcer disease, asthma, cold, skin disease, hypertension, and others are reported to be treated with the different plant preparations in our study.
Leaves, stems, and seeds were mainly used for treatment.
0コメント