Attitude of traditional health practitioners to the documentation of indigenous knowledge in South-West, Nigeria

Abstract

Indigenous knowledge (IK) plays prominent roles in primary healthcare. IK is prone to distortion and it is gradually going into extinction, due to its oral nature and the lukewarm attitude of the younger generation. Therefore, this study investigated attitude of traditional health practitioners (THP) to the documentation of indigenous knowledge in South-West, Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive research design of the correlational type. Three hundred and sixty-two (362) THP were sampled out of the population of 3,850 using Yaro Yemane model for calculating sample size. Traditional health practitioners were purposefully selected because of their roles in primary health care. Proportional sampling technique was used to determine the sample for each state in South-West, Nigeria. The research question was answered, using mean and standard deviation, while Pearson Moment correlation analysis was used to test research hypothesis. The findings of the study revealed that traditional health practitioners have positive attitude to the documentation of IK, wanting other people to know about their IK (mean= 4.19) and that there is significant relationship between attitude and documentation of IK. The study therefore concluded that the traditional health practitioners in South-West, Nigeria, have positive attitude to the documentation of IK.