Herbal medicine safety awareness among Healthcare Professionals in Freetown Sierra Leone

Abstract

Background: There is a pressing need to incorporate herbal medicine preventaKve measures into the current pharmacovigilance system, as recent evidence from the World Health OrganizaKon (WHO) shows. However, medical professionals are generally unaware of the relaKve safety of herbal remedies. Therefore, this research aimed to determine the awareness of herbal safety among medical professionals in Sierra Leone.

Methodology: In this study, we used a cross-secKonal survey of medical staff (n=309) working at three of Freetown, Sierra Leone's, leading medical centers between March and April 2022. The data analysis was performed using StaKsKcal Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 28. We employed descripKve staKsKcs to count instances of a category and assign a percentage. We used a backwards stepwise binary logisKcs regression to find significant associaKons between awareness and predictors at the 5% significance level (p0.05).

Results: Evidence from the study revealed that around 54.7% of respondents knew about herbal medicine safety. There is an associaKon between the knowledge about drug-herbal interacKon and the level of understanding, average observed risk (AOR) = 1.63; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.00-2.66; however, no connecKon was found between years of experience and how well-knownherbal remedies are safe, and finally, no associaKon between the various departments and the level of understanding except for the outpaKent department [Adjusted Odds RaKo (AOR) = 0.49; 95% Confidence Interval (CI):0.25-0.95].

Conclusion: Our findings reveal that medical professionals' knowledge concerning the security of herbal medicine in Freetown, Sierra Leone is unsaKsfactory. Therefore, the regulatory bodies of the various healthcare cadre must promote standardised, coordinated educaKon for all medical personnel to establish an effecKve pharmacovigilance framework for tracking herbal medicaKon.