Traditional and complementary medicine practices used to prevent covid-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study from Turkiye

Abstract

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has shown its effect worldwide and has caused people to experience hard times. This study aims to determine the traditional and complementary medicine (T&CM) practices applied to protect from COVID-19 and attitudes toward them.
 Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. Individuals aged 18 years and older were included in the study. A questionnaire form was delivered between April 1 and April 30, 2021, to the participants online through social media due to the measures implemented throughout the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, median value, minimum, maximum, number, and percentile) were given for categorical and continuous variables. Whether there is a difference between the ratios of a single categorical variable and the relationships between two categorical variables were analyzed using Fisher's exact and chi-square tests. A p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
 Results: About half of those surveyed used T&CM to ward off the COVID-19 outbreak. The most used method was herbal mixtures. The prevalence was strongly associated with gender and previous diagnosis of COVID-19. Most of the participants believed that T&CM practices were necessary.
 Conclusion: Societies’ T&CM experiences are valuable and worth learning. There is an opportunity to test the true value of T&CM in prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Considering the frequency of use of T&CM practices, it can be suggested that this should be implemented more frequently by health professionals as a policy.