Medicinal Plants in Basic Care: A Study of Clinical Practice

According to World Health Organization, 80% of world population uses traditional practices for primary health care, and 85% of this shares the use of medicinal plants or plants-based preparations. Thus, the present work had as objective to investigate the profile of herbal medicine use as well as the conditions to the alive pharmacy implementation in four basic health units in the city of Aracaju, Sergipe, Brazil. For such, 84 family health professionals were interviewed about the use of medicinal plants. Concerning the indication of medicinal plants, 41.67% of the health staff prescribes medicinal plants, 55.95% reported never having prescribed medicinal plants and 2.4% abstained from responding. Despite the intention to use phytotherapy as a therapeutic practice, this practice is not yet fully inserted in the analyzed units due to factors such as lack of training and specific protocols to assist professionals in the use of medicinal plants and phytotherapics.