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Integrating biomedical and herbal medicine in Ghana – experiences from the Kumasi South Hospital: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: Over the past decade there has been growing interest in the use of herbal medicine both in developed and developing countries. Given the high proportion of patients using herbal medicine in Ghana, some health facilities have initiated implementation of herbal medicine as a component of t...

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Autores principales: Boateng, Millicent Addai, Danso-Appiah, Anthony, Turkson, Bernard Kofi, Tersbøl, Britt Pinkowski
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4936317/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27388903
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12906-016-1163-4
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author Boateng, Millicent Addai
Danso-Appiah, Anthony
Turkson, Bernard Kofi
Tersbøl, Britt Pinkowski
author_facet Boateng, Millicent Addai
Danso-Appiah, Anthony
Turkson, Bernard Kofi
Tersbøl, Britt Pinkowski
author_sort Boateng, Millicent Addai
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Over the past decade there has been growing interest in the use of herbal medicine both in developed and developing countries. Given the high proportion of patients using herbal medicine in Ghana, some health facilities have initiated implementation of herbal medicine as a component of their healthcare delivery. However, the extent to which herbal medicine has been integrated in Ghanaian health facilities, how integration is implemented and perceived by different stakeholders has not been documented. The study sought to explore these critical issues at the Kumasi South Hospital (KSH) and outline the challenges and motivations of the integration process. METHODS: Qualitative phenomenological exploratory study design involving fieldwork observations, focus group discussion, in-depth interviews and key informants’ interviews was employed to collect data. RESULTS: Policies and protocols outlining the definition, process and goals of integration were lacking, with respondents sharing different views about the purpose and value of integration of herbal medicine within public health facilities. Key informants were supportive of the initiative. Whilst biomedical health workers perceived the system to be parallel than integrated, health personnel providing herbal medicine perceived the system as integrated. Most patients were not aware of the herbal clinic in the hospital but those who had utilized services of the herbal clinic viewed the clinic as part of the hospital. CONCLUSIONS: The lack of a regulatory policy and protocol for the integration seemed to have led to the different perception of the integration. Policy and protocol to guide the integration are key recommendations.
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spelling pubmed-49363172016-07-08 Integrating biomedical and herbal medicine in Ghana – experiences from the Kumasi South Hospital: a qualitative study Boateng, Millicent Addai Danso-Appiah, Anthony Turkson, Bernard Kofi Tersbøl, Britt Pinkowski BMC Complement Altern Med Research Article BACKGROUND: Over the past decade there has been growing interest in the use of herbal medicine both in developed and developing countries. Given the high proportion of patients using herbal medicine in Ghana, some health facilities have initiated implementation of herbal medicine as a component of their healthcare delivery. However, the extent to which herbal medicine has been integrated in Ghanaian health facilities, how integration is implemented and perceived by different stakeholders has not been documented. The study sought to explore these critical issues at the Kumasi South Hospital (KSH) and outline the challenges and motivations of the integration process. METHODS: Qualitative phenomenological exploratory study design involving fieldwork observations, focus group discussion, in-depth interviews and key informants’ interviews was employed to collect data. RESULTS: Policies and protocols outlining the definition, process and goals of integration were lacking, with respondents sharing different views about the purpose and value of integration of herbal medicine within public health facilities. Key informants were supportive of the initiative. Whilst biomedical health workers perceived the system to be parallel than integrated, health personnel providing herbal medicine perceived the system as integrated. Most patients were not aware of the herbal clinic in the hospital but those who had utilized services of the herbal clinic viewed the clinic as part of the hospital. CONCLUSIONS: The lack of a regulatory policy and protocol for the integration seemed to have led to the different perception of the integration. Policy and protocol to guide the integration are key recommendations. BioMed Central 2016-07-07 /pmc/articles/PMC4936317/ /pubmed/27388903 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12906-016-1163-4 Text en © The Author(s). 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Boateng, Millicent Addai
Danso-Appiah, Anthony
Turkson, Bernard Kofi
Tersbøl, Britt Pinkowski
Integrating biomedical and herbal medicine in Ghana – experiences from the Kumasi South Hospital: a qualitative study
title Integrating biomedical and herbal medicine in Ghana – experiences from the Kumasi South Hospital: a qualitative study
title_full Integrating biomedical and herbal medicine in Ghana – experiences from the Kumasi South Hospital: a qualitative study
title_fullStr Integrating biomedical and herbal medicine in Ghana – experiences from the Kumasi South Hospital: a qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Integrating biomedical and herbal medicine in Ghana – experiences from the Kumasi South Hospital: a qualitative study
title_short Integrating biomedical and herbal medicine in Ghana – experiences from the Kumasi South Hospital: a qualitative study
title_sort integrating biomedical and herbal medicine in ghana – experiences from the kumasi south hospital: a qualitative study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4936317/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27388903
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12906-016-1163-4
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