The Perception of Herbal Medicine Usage among Pregnant Women attending ANC in Nalerigu, East Mamprusi District
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Date
2020-10
Authors
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Publisher
University of Ghana
Abstract
Herbal medicine usage has become a global phenomenon especially among pregnant women in
Africa and other parts of the globe due to the perception of its efficacy and safety and it has
become a competitive alternative to orthodox medicine.
Pregnant women in Nalerigu use herbal medicine because they feel it is effective, affordable and
easily accessible without knowledge of its content and the effects it may have on them.
The main objective of the study is to investigate the use of herbal medications among pregnant
women in the Nalerigu community of the East Mamprusi district. This study is to further
determine the prevalence of herbal medication use among pregnant women in Nalerigu, assess
the side effects of herbal medicine and also assess the perceptions about the effectiveness of
herbal medications among pregnant women in Nalerigu.
This study was a cross-sectional design which employs quantitative data collection approach
through the use of an easily-understood, straight-forward structured questionnaire. The
respondents who were purposively selected/sampled were mainly pregnant women between 16-
49 years of age from Nalerigu and attend ANC at the Baptist Medical Center (BMC).
The data was analyzed using SPSS version 20 soft-ware and a Chi-Square Pearson analysis was
done to determine the effectiveness of herbal medicine as against orthodox medicine.
The study revealed a 34.1% incidence or prevalence out of 177 pregnant women attending ANC
at BMC in Nalerigu, East Mamprusi district with 61.5% believing that herbal medicine is
effective in the treatment of illnesses /diseases.
A Chi-Square analysis indicated a significant figure of 0.00. thus X² (1, N=177) =80.92, P<0.001
when comparing the efficacy of herbal medicine with orthodox medicine. Implying pregnant women believe orthodox medicine is more efficacious than herbal medicine although some of
them still patronize herbal medicine. The study concluded that 34.1% of pregnant women
attending and pregnant women who used herbal medicine in Nalerigu experienced various side
effects such as vomiting (60.5%), headache (5.3%), dizziness (2.6%), skin rashes (5.3%) and
diarrhea (26.3%).
Formal training of herbal medicine practitioners by the ministry of health and other stake holders
to ensure safety and efficacy of herbal medicine use is necessary as recommended by
respondents (58.0%).
Description
MSc. Applied Health Social Science
Keywords
Ghana, Herbal Medicine, Pregnant woman, Nalerigu