Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude, And Utilization of Traditional Medicine Among the Community of South West Omo Zone, Jemu Town, South West Ethiopia Peoples Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Mekuriaw Dereje, Dejen Nureye and Shimaji Gurchima

Background: Traditional medicine is used by about 80% of the Ethiopian people to meet their healthcare needs. Studies on the current knowledge and practices of communities in the era of modern health care expansion are inadequate.

Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude and Utilization of traditional medicine (TM) among the community in West Omo Zone, Jemu Town, South West Regional State of Ethiopia.

Methodology: Descriptive cross-sectional study was used to conduct the study. A systematic random sampling was used to select households. Data was collected through house to house interview. The data was analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 21.0.

Results: The results of this study revealed that overall knowledge of traditional medicine in the community is 63.8%. From total of 390 study participants 251(64.4%) have good attitude on TM and 139(36.6%) have poor attitude on TM. Three hundred forty-eight (89.2%) they reported that they used complementary and alternative medicine in the past two years. According to this study mostly complementary and alternative medicine was given for adults 185(47.4%), elders 122(31.3%), 55(14.1%) for children and 28(7.2%) for pregnant women.

Conclusion: The majority population has good knowledge of the TM. Cultural acceptability and prevalence of traditional medicine in community Jemu Town is 63.8% and this is due to the cultural acceptability, easy accessibility, and affordability of TM. Also, majority of population in the community has good attitude of TM which is 64.4%) and the finding also shows TM are highly utilized by the community about 89.2% in the Town. Herbal medications were used by the community to treat malaria, fever, infection, constipation and others.

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