Perceiving quality, efficacy and safety of herbal medicines in Chile

Introduction In Chile, herbal medicines are becoming more popular, with an important increase in their use over the last decades. Therefore, it is important to maintain the quality, efficacy, and safety of these products in mind. Achieving good quality does not only mean providing an optimal pharmacological effect but also ensuring a high degree of consumer safety. Research on these three aspects is usually conducted from a technical perspective. Despite this, not much is known about how consumers judge these aspects before consumption, how they do it, or how they feel about it.

Aim This study aims to explore how consumers in Chile value the efficacy and safety of the herbal medicines used, as well as whether they assure good quality of the products used.

Method A questionnaire using previously validated and published questionnaires was designed. Efficacy and safety concepts were integrated into the questionnaire to ease the participants’ understanding. These are measured using a grading scale for their perception. It is also asked how they assure quality (if at all).

The final questionnaire is being distributed online through social media to the target population. Data from the final outcome will be analysed with SPSS using descriptive and, if possible, inferential statistics [1] [2].

Results At the present time, the data is still being collected. Thus, the final results will be available on the poster presentation.

Acknowledgements This project is supported by ANID PFCHA/BCH under grant 72190292.

Publication History

Article published online:
13 June 2022

• References

• 1 Lazarou R, Heinrich M. Phytother Res 2019; 33: 2409-2420
• 2 Lopez G. et al. J Global Oncol 2019; 5: 1-6