Prevalence of Patients Taking Homeopathy Medicine for Non Communicable Diseases under Alternative Medical Care in Bangladesh: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Aim: This current study was intended to evaluate the respond of patients to the available homeopathic medicine health services at the designated government health facilities in Bangladesh. As a part of that, the potentiality of homeopathic medicines in managing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) including gynecological problems, skin diseases, and Ear-Nose-Throat (ENT) complaints was also determined. Study Design: This study was conducted in a cross-sectional method; designed to collect two sets of data, one from the hospital registry, and another set was collected by interviewing the visiting patients. Place and Duration of Study: This exploration was conducted within 10 (ten) randomly selected government hospitals, and data from first March 2017 to twenty-eighth February 2018 was considered.  Material and Methods: In this study, 5 (five) upazilla health complexes (UHC), and 5 (five) district health complexes (DHC) were included. The collected data from these hospital registries were used for clinical data analysis. Using a predesigned questionnaire, another set of data was collected by interviewing the visiting patients; a group of 150 individual patients from these 10 hospitals (15*10=150, one hundred and fifty), was randomly nominated for demographic data analysis. Result: The study revealed that there were 8% of patients taking homeopathic medicines among visiting patients at government hospitals. Both males (43%), females (57%) were taking help from this service. A calculated 35.33% of these patients completed the secondary school certificate, and patients with garments jobs (38%) are the principle consumers of this medical service. Patients with various non-communicable diseases including female diseases (22%), skin diseases (21%), ear-nose-throat (ENT) diseases (14%), cardio vascular diseases-CVD (13%), Hemorrhoid (13%), rheumatic fever (7%), and asthma (6%) were seeking homeopathic medicine service at the government hospitals. Conclusion: This study result suggests with limited manpower, homeopathic medicine service helping significantly in the national health services.