Popularity of Herbal Medicine, HADI ALNAJJAR, HUSSAM ALKOOT and MARIAM ALHUSSAINI
Abstract
Background: Herbal remedies play a major roll in the folcloric nature of Kuwaity community. Old remedies and priscriptions are passed down through genirations. You may find dry opium capsules in some household chest of medicine that is ued for insomnia despite its illigality. There is no clear bounderies between legal herbal products both as crud or as packaged pharmaceutical products verses the ordinary so called chemical products. The WHO herbal Act of 1986, in which I was the repre-sentative of Kuwait was an attempt to set guidelines defining herbal products and the laws of import and export of such drugs. Aim of Study: As an attempt to obtaine feedback from our community about the popularity of such systems of treatments, this study aims to identify the popularity of herbal remedies compared to chemical remedies for future legistlative acts. Matrial and Methods: The study was carried out amongst students at the College of Health Sciences in the State of Kuwait. The effect of the variables of specialization and gender was measured. This study adopts the descriptive approach and data have been collected through a questionnaire applied to the sample of the study of male and female students at the College of Health Sciences. Results: The study's results show that there are statistically significant differences (0.05) among the responses of the study sample's individuals regarding the following domains: Herbal (HB), Orthodox (OR), legislation, and general infor-mation due to the variable of gender in favor of females while there are no differences regarding the domain of supplemental and beauty products. Additionally, the results indicate that there are statistically significant differences regarding the following domains: Herbal (HB) and Orthodox (OR) due to the variable of specialization while there are no differences regarding the domain of supplemental and beauty products, legislation, and general information. Concllusion: The results display that most of the sample's individuals prefer and recommend using herbal remedies, and that they like beauty cosmetics made of herbal drugs. Also, most of the sample's individuals believe in the importance of having centers that provide herbal treatment in Kuwait stating that a great number of patients in Kuwait have no knowledge about these centers. Furthermore, some of the study sample's individuals believe that it is important to use chemical remedies in the acute cases and that both herbal and chemical remedies complement each other.