Awareness on Traditional and Complementary Medicine among Undergraduate Students in Universiti Putra Malaysia

Abstract

Introduction: In Malaysia, the use of Traditional and Complementary Medicine (T&CM) for health maintenance is growing yearly. However, the public might not be aware that the usage of T&CM could have an effect if misused. Objective: This study aims to determine the level of knowledge, attitude, practice, and awareness of T&CM among Health Sciences (HS) and Non-Health Sciences (NHS) students at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Methods: A self-administered online questionnaire was distributed to undergraduate students in UPM through student’s group chat application. Results: There were no significant differences between HS and NHS students’ knowledge, attitude and practice. However, the level of awareness between the two groups were significantly different (HS: 10.07 ± 1.37, NHS: 9.63 ± 1.62) with p<0.01. The main sources to obtain the information for T&CM were family or friends (77.4%), the internet (77.4%), and mass media (59.2%). Common T&CM used were aromatherapy (55.9%), prayer or spiritual healing (73.6%), and traditional herbal (64.1%). Patterns of usage for the above modalities were observed with aromatherapy (5.8%) and traditional herbal (4.8%) highest for weekly, whereas prayer or spiritual healing has the highest for daily usage (32.2%). Conclusion: Students exhibit adequate knowledge, demonstrate a positive attitude and good practice, and have a higher awareness of T&CM. It is recommended for repeated cross-sectional studies to be conducted on the same respondents to track changes in their knowledge, attitude, practice, and awareness of T&CM over time.