Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice towards Herbal Medicines in General Public of Raichur, Karnataka

Abstract

Nature has given a large source of medicinal agents from plants for the past thousands of years, an impressive number of modern drugs have been isolated from natural sources. The plant-based, traditional medicine system continues to play an essential role in health care, with about 80% of the world’s inhabitants relying mainly on traditional medicines for their primary health care. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practice towards herbal medicine (HM) in Raichur district of Karnataka. A descriptive, validated cross sectional questionnaire based study was conducted for a period of six months. The survey was divided into 3 themes and comprised of 30 items that gathered information about the knowledge, attitude and practice of respondents toward herbal medicines. Approximately 50.5% of the respondents believed that herbal medications are better than commercially available prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Majority (72.5%) of them reported that they did not visit physicians for their complementary and alternative medicine use. The most common influences for using this type of treatment were family (65%) followed by the internet (29.6%). The most commonly reported herbal medicines used were tulsi (65.9%) and ginger (54.4%). More than half of the respondents (59.8%) reported that cough/cold is the most common ailment for using HM. The study revealed a high prevalence of HM use among general public of north Karnataka. More awareness and education about risks and complications of HM use are needed for general public.