Pharmacy, Nakfa Hospital, Nakfa, Eritrea.
Traditional Medicine Unit, National Medicines and Food Administration, Asmara, Eritrea.
BMC Complement Med Ther. 2021 Feb 19;21(1):68. doi: 10.1186/s12906-021-03247-9.
Despite the growing conventional healthcare coverage in Eritrea, traditional medicine (TM) remains an essential source of healthcare service to the population. This study, therefore, aims at exploring the attitude, societal dependence, and pattern of TM use of the Gash-Barka community.
A cross-sectional study was conducted between December 2018 and January 2019 in Gash-Barka region, one of the six regions of Eritrea. Two-stage stratified cluster sampling design was used to provide representative sample of households. The data collected through face-to-face interview using a structured questionnaire was entered twice and analyzed using CSPro7.2 and SPSS 23, respectively. Both descriptive and analytical analyses were performed to test statistical significance.
Of the total 210 participants, 202 completed the interview with a response rate of 96.2%. Almost 97% of the respondents were aware of the general existence of TM. About half of the respondents (47.4%) had visited traditional health practitioners (THPs) at least once in their lifetime. The majority of the respondents claimed their medical condition had been improved (63.2%), were satisfied with the outcome (76.8%), and had not encountered complications (95.2%) due to TM use. Around 40% of the respondents admitted they do not disclose previous TM use to conventional health practitioners. Females are more likely to have had ever visited THPs (AOR = 1.85, CI: 1.01, 3.38) and use TM in the future (AOR = 2.26, CI: 0.92, 5.14) than males. Moreover, those who had visited THPs before (COR = 8.30, CI: 3.25, 21.20) are more likely to use TM as a primary treatment choice and prefer to use TM in the future (AOR = 4.40, CI: 1.97, 9.83) than those who had never visited THPs. About 61% of the total families claimed they had circumcised at least one female child, and 96.8% disclosed they had circumcised at least one male child. Out of which, 89.2% of the circumcisions were done by THPs.
TM is popular and widely relayed upon by Gash-Barka residents with exposure of children to harmful TM practices. Since the reliance of the community on TM is expected to continue, further representative studies are recommended to inform regulatory interventions and integrate TM into the health system.
尽管厄立特里亚的常规医疗保健覆盖面不断扩大，但传统医学（TM）仍然是该人群医疗服务的重要来源。因此，本研究旨在探讨加什-巴卡社区对 TM 的态度、社会依赖程度和使用模式。
2018 年 12 月至 2019 年 1 月在厄立特里亚六个地区之一的加什-巴卡地区进行了一项横断面研究。采用两阶段分层聚类抽样设计，为家庭提供具有代表性的样本。通过面对面访谈使用结构化问卷收集的数据进行了两次录入，并分别使用 CSPro7.2 和 SPSS 23 进行分析。进行了描述性和分析性分析，以检验统计显著性。
在 210 名参与者中，有 202 名完成了访谈，应答率为 96.2%。几乎 97%的受访者都知道 TM 的普遍存在。大约一半的受访者（47.4%）一生中至少曾一次去过传统医疗从业者（THP）那里。大多数受访者声称他们的病情有所改善（63.2%），对结果感到满意（76.8%），并且由于使用 TM 没有遇到并发症（95.2%）。大约 40%的受访者承认他们不会向传统医疗从业者透露之前使用 TM 的情况。女性比男性更有可能曾经去过 THP（AOR=1.85，CI：1.01，3.38）并在未来使用 TM（AOR=2.26，CI：0.92，5.14）。此外，那些之前去过 THP 的人（COR=8.30，CI：3.25，21.20）更有可能将 TM 作为主要治疗选择，并更愿意在未来使用 TM（AOR=4.40，CI：1.97，9.83）比那些从未去过 THP 的人。大约 61%的家庭声称他们至少为一名女性儿童割礼，96.8%的家庭声称他们至少为一名男性儿童割礼。其中，89.2%的割礼是由 THP 完成的。
TM 在加什-巴卡居民中很受欢迎，并且广泛依赖，儿童接触到有害的 TM 做法。由于社区对 TM 的依赖预计将继续存在，因此建议进行进一步的代表性研究，以提供监管干预措施并将 TM 纳入卫生系统。
