What is it about?
Our study looks at current healthcare-seeking behaviour among Ebola survivors and determines the prevalence, pattern of use and correlates of traditional and complementary medicine (T&CM) use among Ebola survivors in Sierra Leone.
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Why is it important?
Preliminary unpublished data from Sierra Leone suggests EVD survivors experiencing long-term physical and psycho-social problems seek the services of traditional healers.[26] Such health-seeking relating to T&CM may be due to personal, economic, psychological, social and cultural needs as well as health system factors. However, vigorous, large-scale studies are needed to determine the extent to which this initial report can be confirmed and representative of the wider population of Ebola survivors. In light of the common use of T&CM in Sierra Leone,[3, 5, 6] and the interest among the scientific community in understanding post-Ebola sequelae among survivors,[27] there is a significant gap in our understanding of the role of T&CM in addressing the health needs of Ebola survivors (within the wider landscape of their health-seeking behaviours)
Perspectives
Our new research finds that contemporary Ebola survivors’ healthcare-seeking behaviour is pluralistic. Also, perceived poor health and self-reported arthralgia predict the use of non-conventional healthcare. Abdominal pain, joint pain and lower back pain were most cited post–Ebola indications for the use of non-conventional healthcare. As in most studies, Ebola survivors' non-disclosure rate of non-conventional healthcare use to their healthcare providers was high.
Dr Peter B James
Southern Cross University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Pattern of health care utilization and traditional and complementary medicine use among Ebola survivors in Sierra Leone, PLoS ONE, September 2019, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0223068.
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Contributors
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