Use of home remedies for the treatment and prevention of coronavirus disease: An integrative review

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Home remedies are understood to mean medications or tonics prepared at home to treat certain ailments without any prescription or professional supervision. Reliance on home remedies increased during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19). The aim of this integrative review was to identify home remedies used to treat and prevent COVID‐19 and discuss implications for nursing practice and health related to the safety and efficacy of home remedies. METHODS: Cooper's integrative review method guided this study to identify home remedies used to prevent and treat COVID‐19. Google Scholar, BMC, EBSCOhost, Medline, Academic Search Ultimate, Web of Science Core Collections, Science Direct and Global Health were used to search for relevant information on the use of COVID‐19 home remedies from 2019 to 2022. The Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) checklist was used to select studies that had to be included. The eligibility criteria included studies on home remedies, written in English from 2019 to 2022. Findings of qualitative, quantitative and mixed‐methods research were extracted, and narrative thematic data synthesis was applied. RESULTS: Eleven articles which met the inclusion criteria were found in nine countries: Ghana (1), South Africa (1), Tanzania (1), Togo (1) and Zimbabwe (1), Bangladesh (1), Hong Kong (1), India (2), Iran (1), and Pakistan (1). Findings showed that home remedies are used for the prevention of COVID‐19 infection, treatment of COVID‐19, and boosting immunity. CONCLUSIONS: Home remedies have been found to be more pronounced across all sectors and social strata. More research is needed on the use of home remedies for life‐threatening outbreaks. Policymakers and healthcare workers are challenged to encourage the use of home remedies in the prevention of other ailments and epidemics that might occur in the future.