Herbal product use in patients with chronic kidney disease

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Recently, despite the developments in diagnosis and treatment of diseases, herbal product use in patients with chronic diseases has become more frequent. The aim of our study was to investigate the frequency of herbal medicine use in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), used products, source of information, whether they were giving information to their clinicians about this subject and cost of used products. MATERIAL and METHODS: The investigation has been performed with 100 CKD patients. A questionnaire form has been used in collecting data about the patients. RESULTS: The herbal use rate in our study was 37%. The most used herbal products were ready products and stinging nettle. There was no relation between herbal product use and age, gender, educatin level, marital status (p>0.05). 87% of the patients indicated that monthly cost of the product was lower than 50 Turkish Liras. 78.4% of the patients defined that they didn't give information to their clinicians about the herbal product they used. CONCLUSION: A significant part of the patients with CKD use herbal products and do not give information to the clinicians about this subject. The physicians following the patients with CKD should examine the use of herbal products.