Herbal product use in hypertension patients

Abstract

Despite recent developments in diagnosis and treatment of diseases, individuals with chronic disease use herbal products much more than others. Our study aims to examine the rates of herbal product use, the kinds of used products, source of information, whether the doctors are being informed and cost of the products used in patients with hypertension in our region. The study has been performed with 100 hypertension patients referred to our outpatient clinic. A questionnaire consisted of 9 questions has been used to gather the data about the patients. In our study, the herbal product use in hypertension patients was 53% . The most frequently used herbal products were lemon and garlic. Majority of the patients (83%) reported the source of information about the product as neighbours, relatives, friends or television and radio. While 28% of the patients were using the herbal product regularly everyday, 34% of them were only using these products if their blood pressure increased. Fourty six (87%) patients used these products did not give information to the clinician about the product. Eighty seven per cent of the patients told that the monthly cost of the product they used was less than 50 TL. A significant proportion of the patients with hypertension uses herbal product and they do not give information to the clinicians about the subject. The use of these kind of products without knowing the effects and side-effects may cause undesirable results. © 2012 OMU.