Access to herbal medicine in primary health care through Social Network Analysis (SNA))
Abstract
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) in the last decade there has been an increase in the search in developed countries for alternative therapies, including phytotherapy. The WHO estimates that 80% of the world population use herbal medicine. For these reasons, the WHO recommends the implementation of effective Phytotherapy Programs as a global health issue. From the quantitative-qualitative study, with an approach in ARS, construction and analysis of the personal networks of phytotherapy users of a Basic Health Unit in Rio de Janeiro were carried out. This article addresses the exploratory descriptive quantitative analysis of this study. The phytotherapy service is more indicated in the personal network (84.62%) than by the health professional, the public service represents 8.97% of the total referenced in the network, against 91.03% of private indications. The network of phytotherapy users is fragmented. The health professionals of UBS investigated have low centrality of intermediation in the network. Our findings suggest that the access to information about the practice of phytotherapy and the indication for the herbal service is more referenced in the personal network than by the health professional. This information is fundamental for the planning, evaluation and eventual reformulation of the strategies of access to the phytotherapy program and can be applied to other health programs.Keywords
Social Networks Analysis, Health Services, phytotherapy, accessPublished
2019-11-19
Downloads
Copyright (c) 2019 Monique de Lima Fonseca Rodrigues, Marcia Gomide da Silva Mello

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.