Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Alternative Medicine (Herbal) among Khartoum University Medical Students, sudan
Samah Khalid Musa Mohammed
Background: Herbal medicine refers to use of plants seeds, roots ,leaves ,bark , flowers or other plant parts or derivatives for medicinal purposes to treat diseases and for general improvement of health , using herbal medicines may be beneficial but not completely harmless. Because the interest of herbal medicine and complementary medicine as generally is increasing worldwide and locally this study was conducted.
Objectives: to assess knowledge , attitude and practice of herbal medicine among Khartoum university medical students 2017-2018 .
Method: this is a cross-sectional study ,facility based ,conducted among 196 medical students using self administered questionnaire ,comprised of Socio-demographic data, knowledge, practices and attitudes about herbal medicine .
Results: Regarding the knowledge of the students most of the students (72.4%) knew what is the herbal medicine, and 88.8% knew that orange is commonly used for cold and flu symptoms but about 70% didn’t know that garlic can lower the blood pressure , More than half of the students saw that herbal medicine is not well recognized by doctors because of lack of evidence based trials, followed by lack of training then long time for treatment. 70% of the students used herbal medicine ,the most commonly used herbal medicines were orange, lemon, trigonella, ginger, mint, acacia and hibiscus, this usage of herbal medicine was more common and frequent in females. also the study found that they used herbs to treat cough(40.8%), pain relief(27%) and less commonly to treat malaria, to reduce blood pressure ,and to reduce blood sugar. the attitudes of the students were generally positive as , only 10% disagreed that herbal medicines are ineffective in treating diseases,49.5% agreed the idea of introduction of herbal medicine as a subject in the curriculum , and 63.3% agreed that Clinical care should integrate the best of conventional and herbal medications
Conclusion: the study concluded the knowledge about what is the herbal medicine and knowledge about certain types of herbal medicines in the Khartoum university medical students is good, and the participants’ attitude and practice towards herbal medicine is generally positive.
