Abstract
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use is widespread and has played critical roles in preventing infections, including previous coronaviruses. This study sought to document current practices in the use of CAM for the prevention of COVID-19 disease in Ghana. An anonymous electronic survey was conducted from February 1, 2021 to April 30, 2021. Data on demographic characteristics, basic clinical information, illness perceptions about COVID-19, and CAM use during the pandemic period were generated. While about 82.5% (986/1195) of the participants used CAM during the COVID-19 period, 69.1% (681/986) of CAM users intented it for COVID-19 infection prevention. Vitamin supplements (88.1%, 869/986), spiritual healing/prayer (23.3%, 230/986), mineral supplements (22.3%, 220/986), botanical/herbal medicines (22.2%, 219/986), and diet therapy (19.4%, 191/986) were the main types of CAM used. From the adjusted binary logistic regression model, current age (aOR: 1.03, 95%CI: 1.01–1.05), sex (aOR: 1.41, 95%CI: 1.02–1.95), participants’ perceptions of consequences (aOR: 1.10, 95%CI: 1.04–1.17), identity (aOR: 1.15, 95%CI: 1.06–1.25) and concerns about COVID-19 (aOR: 0.91, 95%CI: 0.85–0.97) were statistically significant predictors of CAM use. These results suggest the need for appropriate public health policy on COVID-19 and CAM use in addition to directing further research initiatives toward an optimized COVID-19 prevention scheme using clinically validated CAM treatments. Research to validate the clinical efficacy of these products, especially the herbs, for COVID-19 prevention while isolating lead compounds that could be optimized and used for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 is also recommended.
Highlights
The Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) which is a zoonotic viral in fectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 has become a global pandemic of major public health concern (Gorbalenya et al, 2020)
The findings indicated that the use of Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) during the COVID-19 increased with the increasing age of participants
Our study indicated that the beliefs about experiencing COVID-19 symptoms resulted in a significant increase in CAM use
Summary
The Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) which is a zoonotic viral in fectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 has become a global pandemic of major public health concern (Gorbalenya et al, 2020). The World Health Organization developed preventive guidelines to slow viral spread (Wu and McGoogan, 2020), Medicine Regulatory Agencies in several countries have approved vaccines under emergency use authorisation and medicines like azithromycin, hydrox ychloroquine, chloroquine phosphate, ivermectin, doxycycline, dexa methasone, methylprednisolone, remdesivir, and convalescent plasma for COVID-19 case management (Tarighi et al, 2021; Sanders et al, 2020). With these conventional interventions, there are reports of comple mentary or alternative treatments such as herbal preparations, dietary therapy, vitamin supplements, and prayer for prevention or treatment of COVID-19 (Jabaris and Ananthalakshmi, 2021; Boozari and Hossein zadeh, 2020; Panyod et al, 2020). Easy access, low costs of CAM (Kretchy et al, 2014; James et al, 2018; Debas et al, 2006), and perception towards illness (Canaway and Manderson, 2013; Kucuk, 2017) mainly contribute to its expanded utilization
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