Abstract:

Background: The number of patients seeking alternative and herbal medicine is growing exponentially. With the era of NCDs emergences where most people stay chronically ill, data on the extent of herbal medicine use in this context remain not widely explored. This is even critical in moments where our primary health care system remain not well prepared to the epidemics of NCDs in Tanzania.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess magnitude traditional medicine use in adult patients attending clinic in Sengerema designated district hospital.

Methodology: The cross sectional study was carried out in September 2019 to December 2019 at Sengerema district in northeastern Tanzania. Data was computerized and analyzed using SPSS version 20.

Results: Among 288 patients with chronic illness were recruited in this study, 174 (60.4%) reported to have used traditional medicine in the course of their illness while 75 (26%) reports complement the TM and allopathic medicine (AM). Hypertension, diabetes and HIV/AIDS patients showed high TM use tendency compared to others (p=0.001). The main reasons for most of the patients who use TM or complimentary medicine were economic constraints (p=0.00) and time consuming pattern to the access of modern medicine were reported by ˘65.6% (p=0.002) of all users of TM. Other reasons being the effectiveness of TM than the younger <500 years of age (p=0.000).

Conclusion: The use of traditional medicine is high in primary health care services especially in rural poor people, despite the weak understanding of its safety and efficacy. More research are be done to assess the efficacy and side effects of the commonly used traditional medicine products. The traditional medicine and modern medicine are complementary rather than competitors.

Keywords: Magnitude, chronic illness, traditional medicine, adult, Sengerema.