Patients' Herbal Medicine Use Examined in CC Nursing Study
By Laura Bradbard
The popularity of herbal medicines is growing like a weed. Health products made from plants are sold in health food and grocery stores for arthritis, headaches, allergies, stress, and even the common cold.
A new Clinical Center nursing department study assessing the incidence of herbal medicine use among some CC patients aims to illustrate what herbal products are taken by CC patients, what percentage of patients use them, and why.
The World Health Organization estimates that use of herbal medicines, also called dietary supplements, is three to four times more common worldwide than conventional biomedicine. These herb-based capsules, liquids, and teas -- products like ginseng, spirulina, camomile, milk thistle, ma huang, and wheat grass -- share drugstore shelf space with proven remedies like vitamin C, calcium tablets, and antihistamines.
A New England Journal of Medicine study estimates one in three Americans used some form of alternative medicine in 1990 to relieve chronic health problems -- and paid almost $14 billion for it.
Eunice Johnson, a CC nurse on the 9th floor clinic and primary investigator of the study, surveyed 500 NIDDK, NICHD, and NIAMS outpatients being treated for chronic hepatitis and hepatic, rheumatic, endocrine, or metabolic conditions.
"Chronically ill patients are vulnerable for herb use because their medical needs are not being met. They have conditions for which there is no cure," she explains.
"We, as nurses, must consider a patient's cultural and emotional needs and we need to create a research environment that is culturally sensitive to these needs."
Subjects in Johnson's study completed an herbal assessment survey, which gathered patient information such as their age, occupation, education, and a description and cost of any herbal therapy they had used. Johnson and her research team hope to create a database of potential effects of herbal medicines.
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