A hypothetical regulation of herbal medicines and its impact on consumer use and attitudes.

摘要

Background. The debate over the safety and efficacy of herbal medicines has resulted in studies being conducted based on a review of historical data as well as actual survey studies. Most of these studies conducted in the last 10 years examined the use of herbal medicines across different patient populations and disease states. However, there has been little discussion on how a consumer's herbal medicine use would change if herbals were regulated for safety and efficacy. The goal of this study was to fill the gap in literature by conducting a survey study containing a hypothetical scenario in which herbal medicines were regulated and its impact on consumer use and attitudes.;Objective. Firstly, to explore: (1) the current attitudes and use of herbal medicines and, (2) to determine how the implementation of a hypothetical herbal regulation would affect attitudes and use of both herbal users as well as non-users. Secondly, to see if current use and attitudes have any effect on demographic variables such as age, race, income, educational background, and gender.;Method. A self-administered, written survey using a pre-post experimental design that implemented some form of incentive was distributed to a random cross-section of 401 New York City residents during the months of August and September 2004. The age requirement for potential respondents was 18 years and older. The survey was anonymous and took approximately 10-15 minutes.;Results. Overall, almost 40% of respondents reported using some form of herbal medicines currently and/or in the past. Respondents agreed that herbal medicines would yield fewer side effects than prescription medicines with regulation than without regulation (p = .009). They also agreed that herbal medicines would yield fewer drug interactions with regulation than without regulation (p = .053). Income and herbal use yielded significant results with (p = .005, .003 and <.001, respectively) with regard to safety and a hypothetical regulation. Overall, consumers demonstrated that they felt the herbal medicines would be more effective with a regulation in place. The respondents were significantly more likely to agree that herbals would be effective with regulation than without regulation with (p = .045) with a t test analysis and (p = .039) with a Wilcox signed rank test, while race, education, and herbal use yielded significant results with (p = .042, .012 and <.001, respectively) with regards effectiveness and a hypothetical regulation. About 88% of non-users indicated that they would be more inclined to use herbal medicines if the industry were regulated.;Conclusions. As demonstrated, herbal use would be affected by a regulation of the industry with the biggest effect on current non users. The industry's lack of regulation to safeguard against potentially dangerous outcomes of its use either alone or in combination with other prescription and herbal medicines is one that should be investigated. This is even more important if consumers will be more apt to use these medicines with the knowledge that they are being monitored.