Prevalence use of herbal drug and attitude of women about use of herbal product among women refer to health care center in Shahrekord

Abstract

Introduction: Drug therapy has a profound influence on the health all over the word the effective and the rational use of drugs (herbal or modern) constitutes one of the most important parts of health care programmed. To document attitude of women about use of herbal product among women refer to health care center.

Methods and Materials: In this descriptive and cross- sectional stady 1449 women referring to health care center and Hajar hospital in Shahrekord were interviewed by using a structured questionnaire. The cases were chosen by simple random sampling. For the data analysis, the T- test & c2 were used.

Results: In all, 68.1% of all women reported herbal use within the past 12 months, both women who had used herbal drugs and those not, had a positive attitude to ward the use of herbal drugs (80.3%) and 62.6% be lived herbal drug free from side effect and harmless. These women used 126 types of herbs for 101 problems. 43.4% of women used herbal drugs with modern drugs and 62% use mixture of several herbal drugs. 7.8% reported side effect with herbal product. The most commonly reported reasons for using herb were cold (29.47%). Yarrow was the most commonly used herb among 126 other species of herb. 52.8% of women had not reported the use of herbs to their physicians and the most common reason for nondisclosure was the belief that traditional herbal drugs were natural and safe (39.9%). Factors associated with the use of herbal drugs in pregnancy were low education, lower income and age between 29-20 years but non significant. There was a significant higher frequency of herbal drugs use in women with chronic diseases (P<0.0001).

Conclusion: The widespread use and positive attitude to ward herbal drugs by women indicates increase need for efforts educate health care providers about common herbs used by women. Physicians should routinely question their patients regarding the use of herbal product, which may cause drugs interaction and adverse effects.