Knowledge, attitude, practice, and management of traditional medicine among people of Burka Jato Kebele, West Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Traditional medicine (TM) has maintained its popularity in all regions of the developing world. Even though, the wide acceptance of TM is a well-established fact, its status in a population with access to modern health is not well clear in the whole country. This study was carried out to assess the knowledge, attitudes, practice and management of TM among the community of Burka Jato Kebele, West Ethiopia. METHODOLOGY: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on a total of 282 sampled individuals’ selected using systematic random sampling from January 28, 2013 to February 8, 2013 in Burka Jato Kebele, Nekemte town, East Wollega Zone, West of Ethiopia. RESULTS: The majority (94.22%) of people in the study area relied on TM. Most of them were aware of medicinal herbs (55.7%). About half (40.79%) of the respondents were aware of the major side-effects of TM such as diarrhea (36.64%). About 31.85% of them prefer traditional medical practices (TMP) because they are cheap. Most (50%) of the species were harvested for their leaves to prepare remedies, followed by seed (21.15%) and root (13.46%) and the methods of preparation were pounding (27.54%), crushing (18.84%), a concoction (15.95%) and squeezing (13.04%). About 53.84% of them were used as fresh preparations. Remedies were reported to be administered through oral (53.85%), dermal or topical (36.54%), buccal (3.85%) and anal (5.77%). CONCLUSION: The study revealed that the use of TMs were quite popular among the population and a large proportion of the respondents not only preferred, but also used TMs notwithstanding that they lived in the urban communities with better access to modern medical care and medical practitioners. To use TM as a valuable alternative to conventional western medicine, further investigation must be undertaken to determine the validity, efficacy of the plants to make it available as an alternative medicine to human beings.