Abstract
Most rural dwellers of developing countries often patronise unstandardized traditional medical care when they are ill. The study determined the reasons for preference of trado- medical care to standard orthodox medicine among secondary school students in Nigeria. A cross sectional study was carried out in three secondary schools located at Imesi-Ile, Osun State Nigeria. Respondents were recruited by multistage sampling technique. Fifty students each were selected from final year Junior Secondary School class, senior secondary classes 1 and 2 without gender bias. Pre-tested semi- structured questionnaires were employed to elicit data on their choice of preference for traditional medicine to orthodox medic-care. The results were analysed using SPSS version 20. Most respondents were females, 77 (51.3%). About 113 (75.3%) reported that they preferred traditional care to orthodox treatment because the later was too expensive for them to afford. About 108 (72%) adopted traditional medicine because of parents’ choice. Those who reported easy accessibility to traditional medicine as a choice for its preference were 85 (56.6%), while 78 (52%) believed that traditional medicines cure faster than orthodox, others reported they have been using traditional medicine from childhood (60.7%), and for some traditional medicine was preferred due to their friend’s choice (54.0%). Most youths preferred trado-medical care due to high cost of orthodox medicine and wrong perceptions. Proper education to correct wrong notions among youths and improving the economic power of the people will help the community.
Highlights
Developing countries over time have been worst hit with poor medical treatment resulting into increased mortalities and morbidities especially among the vulnerable groups such as children and pregnant women. [1] The youths, who constitute a significant proportion of the entire population are not spared of these problems
[2] literature exists indicating that most people in some parts of Africa prefer the utilization of orthodox medical care especially where there are easy accessibilities to the basic health facilities at their domain. [3, 4] Preference for orthodox medical care have been reported in some part of Africa countries due to factors such as perceived toxicity of traditional medicine, and religious beliefs
While 52.0% believed that traditional medicines cure faster than orthodox, others reported they have been using traditional medicine from childhood (60.7%), and for some traditional medicine was preferred due to their friend’s choice (54.0%)
Summary
Developing countries over time have been worst hit with poor medical treatment resulting into increased mortalities and morbidities especially among the vulnerable groups such as children and pregnant women. [1] The youths, who constitute a significant proportion of the entire population are not spared of these problems. It was reported that a significant number of hypertensive patients receiving conventional treatment at the tertiary health facility in Lagos, Nigeria use local traditional medicine at the same time. Traditional medical system in low income countries remain the first point of contact by the people in rural communities where patients may need to travel longer distances to access standard orthodox medical care. [4] In most cases when the traditional healers’ hands off the management of their patients, many irreparable damages would have taken place in some vital organs of the body due to usage of unstandardized dose regimen of their herbal drugs Such practices have the tendency of increasing morbidities and mortalities among patients
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