For Publishers
DiscoveryMetadataPeer reviewHostingPublishing
For Researchers
JoinPublishReviewCollect
Register
Blog
About
Search
Advanced search
My ScienceOpen
Search
For Publishers
For Researchers
Blog
About
94
views
30
references
 Top references
cited by
76
    
0 reviews
 Review
0
comments
 Comment
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      522
      similar
       All similar
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Herbal medicine use in pregnancy: results of a multinational study

      research-article

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Background

          The use of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) is growing in the general population. Herbal medicines are used in all countries of the world and are included in the top CAM therapies used.

          Methods

          A multinational study on how women treat disease and pregnancy-related health ailments was conducted between October 2011 and February 2012 in Europe, North and South America and Australia. In this study, the primary aim was to determine the prevalence of herbal medicine use in pregnancy and factors related to such use across participating countries and regions. The secondary aim was to investigate who recommended the use of herbal medication in pregnancy.

          Results

          There were 9,459 women from 23 countries participating in the study. Of these, 28.9% reported the use of herbal medicines in pregnancy. Most herbal medicines were used for pregnancy-related health ailments such as cold and nausea. Ginger, cranberry, valerian and raspberry were the most commonly used herbs in pregnancy. The highest reported rate of herbal use medicines was in Russia (69%). Women from Eastern Europe (51.8%) and Australia (43.8%) were twice as likely to use an herbal medicine versus other regions. Women using herbal medicines were characteristically having their first child, non-smokers, using folic acid and consuming some alcohol in pregnancy. Also, women who were currently students and women with an education other than a high school degree were more likely to use herbal medicines than other women. Although 1 out of 5 women stated that a physician had recommended the herbal use, most women used herbal medicine in pregnancy on their own initiative.

          Conclusions

          In this multinational study herbal medicine use in pregnancy was high although there were distinct differences in the herbs and users of herbal medicines across regions. Most commonly the women self-medicated with herbal medicine to treat pregnancy-related health ailments. More knowledge regarding the efficacy and safety of herbal medicines in pregnancy is warranted.

          Related collections

          Most cited references30

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Web-based questionnaires: the future in epidemiology?

          Marleen van Gelder, Reini Bretveld, Nel Roeleveld (2010)
          The traditional epidemiologic modes of data collection, including paper-and-pencil questionnaires and interviews, have several limitations, such as decreasing response rates over the last decades and high costs in large study populations. The use of Web-based questionnaires may be an attractive alternative but is still scarce in epidemiologic research because of major concerns about selective nonresponse and reliability of the data obtained. The authors discuss advantages and disadvantages of Web-based questionnaires and current developments in this area. In addition, they focus on some practical issues and safety concerns involved in the application of Web-based questionnaires in epidemiologic research. They conclude that many problems related to the use of Web-based questionnaires have been solved or will most likely be solved in the near future and that this mode of data collection offers serious benefits. However, questionnaire design issues may have a major impact on response and completion rates and on reliability of the data. Theoretically, Web-based questionnaires could be considered an alternative or complementary mode in the range of epidemiologic methods of data collection. Practice and comparisons with the traditional survey techniques should reveal whether they can fulfill their expectations.
          Article 0 comments Cited 236 times – based on 0 reviews     Review now
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Feasibility of using web-based questionnaires in large population-based epidemiological studies.

            Alexandra Ekman, Paul W. Dickman, Åsa Klint … (2006)
            To date, few large web-based epidemiological studies have been performed in a population-based setting. Sweden has optimal prerequisites for web-based studies with more than 80% of the general population having access to the Internet. Our aim was to investigate (I) response rates in an epidemiological study using primarily the web as a tool for data collection and (II) whether socio-demographic patterns vary between responders to a web and a paper questionnaire. In 2003, we invited 47,859 women to complete a web questionnaire. Two reminders were sent to non-responders; in the first a random sample received a paper questionnaire and in the second the majority received a paper questionnaire. All other non-responders received web questionnaires. Differences in response rates between responders to web and paper questionnaires with regard to socio-demographic and other variables were analyzed, and estimates of the bias introduced by these differences were estimated. In total, 41% of the women responded to the web questionnaire and 31% to the paper questionnaire (overall response rate 72%). The web-, paper- and non-responders respectively did not differ significantly in age, physical activity levels, and body mass index. Women answering web or paper questionnaires had a higher level of education and income and a lower level of smoking than non-responders. The bias associated with collecting information using web questionnaires was not greater than that caused by paper questionnaires. We conclude that web-based questionnaires are a feasible tool for data collection in large population based epidemiological studies in Sweden.
            Article 0 comments Cited 80 times – based on 0 reviews     Review now
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              A systematic literature review of complementary and alternative medicine prevalence in EU.

              Susan Eardley, Felicity Bishop, Philip Prescott … (2012)
              Studies suggest that complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is widely used in the European Union (EU). We systematically reviewed data, reporting research quality and the prevalence of CAM use by citizens in Europe; what it is used for, and why. We searched for general population surveys of CAM use by using Ovid MEDLINE (1948 to September 2010), Cochrane Library (1989 to September 2010), CINAHL (1989 to September 2010), EMBASE (1980 to September 2010), PsychINFO including PsychARTICLES (1989 to September 2010), Web of Science (1989 to September 2010), AMED (1985 to September 2010), and CISCOM (1989 to September 2010). Additional studies were identified through experts and grey literature. Cross-sectional, population-based or cohort studies reporting CAM use in any EU language were included. Data were extracted and reviewed by 2 authors using a pre-designed extraction protocol with quality assessment instrument. 87 studies were included. Inter-rater reliability was good (kappa = 0.8). Study methodology and quality of reporting were poor. The prevalence of CAM use varied widely within and across EU countries (0.3-86%). Prevalence data demonstrated substantial heterogeneity unrelated to report quality; therefore, we were unable to pool data for meta-analysis; our report is narrative and based on descriptive statistics. Herbal medicine was most commonly reported. CAM users were mainly women. The most common reason for use was dissatisfaction with conventional care; CAM was widely used for musculoskeletal problems. CAM prevalence across the EU is problematic to estimate because studies are generally poor and heterogeneous. A consistent definition of CAM, a core set of CAMs with country-specific variations and a standardised reporting strategy to enhance the accuracy of data pooling would improve reporting quality.
              Article 0 comments Cited 76 times – based on 0 reviews     Review now
                Bookmark
                All references

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Deborah A Kennedy
                Angela Lupattelli
                Gideon Koren
                Hedvig Nordeng
                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Complement Altern Med
                Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Complement Altern Med
                Title: BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine
                Publisher: BioMed Central
                ISSN (Electronic): 1472-6882
                Publication date Collection: 2013
                Publication date (Electronic): 12 December 2013
                Volume: 13
                Page: 355
                Affiliations
                [1 ]The Motherisk Program, Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, Department of Pediatrics, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, M5G 1X8 Ontario, Canada
                [2 ]School of Pharmacy, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
                [3 ]Division of Mental Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway
                Article
                Publisher ID: 1472-6882-13-355
                DOI: 10.1186/1472-6882-13-355
                PMC ID: 4029224
                PubMed ID: 24330413
                SO-VID: 7154d2e7-e161-47f1-8e4c-b9d9ef87859d
                Copyright © Copyright © 2013 Kennedy et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
                License:

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                Date received : 25 May 2013
                Date accepted : 9 December 2013
                Categories
                Subject: Research Article

                ScienceOpen disciplines: Complementary & Alternative medicine
                Keywords: herbal medicine,cam,complementary and alternative medicine,pregnancy,information sources
                Data availability:
                ScienceOpen disciplines: Complementary & Alternative medicine
                Keywords: herbal medicine, cam, complementary and alternative medicine, pregnancy, information sources

                Comments

                Comment on this article

                scite_

                Similar content522

                See all similar

                Cited by76

                See all cited by

                Most referenced authors264

                See all reference authors