Frequency of herbal medicinal products use in southeastern Serbia

The trend of herbal medicine use continues even today, despite the growing
number of different synthetic, conventional drugs and the huge progress of the
pharmaceutical industry. In recent decades, there has been an increasing use
of different herbal medicinal products in the prevention of diseases, treatment
of chronic and recurrent conditions and diseases, and for maintaining good
health. The aim of our paper was to determine the of their use HMP in the
area of southeastern Serbia. The survey method was applied through a precompiled questionnaire in the Zaječar, Sokobanja and Aleksinac cities. The
results of the research showed that there were 70 different HMP, which
were most often used preventively (32.00%), while the rest were used in
hypertension (23.50%), prostate hyperplasia (8.50%), diabetes (6.53%),
depression (4.60%) and glaucoma (3.90%). The composition of the used
products included 84 different herbal species, the most common of which
were Citrus x aurantium L. (5.90%) and Cucurbita moschata Duchesne
(3.60%). When it comes to prevention and/or treatment of diseases, statistical
analysis showed that the respondents living in the Aleksinac and surrounding
used more plant species compared to people from Sokobanja and Zaječar,
while there was no difference between the respondents in the number of HMP
used. Respondents who did not have prescribed synthetic drugs, used HMP
for the purpose of prevention in a higher percentage.
It can be concluded that the respondents mostly use HMP as preventive
means, but they also use them as an accompanying therapy