Herbal medicine use by surgery patients in Hungary: a descriptive study.

Sándor Árpád Soós,Norbert Jeszenői,László Harsányi,Katalin Darvas

doi:10.1186/s12906-015-0890-2

Abstract

BackgroundThe popularity of non-conventional treatments, especially the consumption of herbs is showing an increasing tendency all over the world. The consumption of herbal medicines might cause several complications during perioperative care.MethodsThe survey was conducted at the First Department of Surgery of Semmelweis University and focused on the demographics of patients consuming herbal medicines who had undergone elective surgery between July 1st 2014 and February 28th 2015. A one-page questionnaire, that the patients filled in individually and anonymously, was used. The response rate was 17.3 %.ResultsOut of the 390 patients who filled in the questionnaire, 7.2 % (28 patients) used herbal medicines, 3.6 % (14 patients) of them two weeks prior to their hospitalization. The other 3.6 % (14 patients) took herbal medicines sometime in the past. The majority of those who have ever consumed herbs are women (18/28), have completed secondary or tertiary education (23/28), more than half of them suffer from tumorous diseases and only a quarter of them (7/28) informed their physician about their use of herbal medication of their own accord.ConclusionsAttention must be paid to the exploration of herb consumption habits of surgery patients during the preoperative examinations in order to avoid potential side effects, complications or drug interactions.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12906-015-0890-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

The popularity of non-conventional treatments, especially the consumption of herbs is showing an increasing tendency all over the world
A rising tendency is discernible of the application of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) among patients with tumorous disease
The fact that participants were willing to give data presupposes that they fulfilled the criterion of honesty, so there is no reason to assume that they retained information on purpose, the chances of giving a misleading answer due to inadequate understanding of some terms is higher

Summary

Introduction

The popularity of non-conventional treatments, especially the consumption of herbs is showing an increasing tendency all over the world. The popularity of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is increasing worldwide. According to a survey, conducted in the United States, between 1990 and 1997 the application of alternative treatments rose from 33.8 to 42.1 %, the use of herbal medication was 12.1 % among the total population [1]. In Korea 29 % of the total adult population uses CAM [3]. In the United Kingdom 41.4 % of the population use CAM yearly, the lifetime prevalence is 51.8 %. In the 1970s one quarter of the patients used CAM, in the 2000s, this ratio rose to 49 % [4] In Trinidad and Tobago 56.2 % of cardiac patients use alternative treatments [5].

Results

Discussion

Conclusion