Indications of medical plants: what do medical students in Germany know? A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background Patients use phytotherapy in addition to cancer therapy. Aiming to equip students with the knowledge necessary for a holistic treatment approach, the (German) national competence-based catalogue of educational objectives in medicine advises to include phytotherapy as part of the curriculum. Here, we evaluate if medical students know the official indication of herbal products as stated by the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) for treating oral and abdominal discomfort. Methods In an online survey, students were asked to write down indications they associated with 25 plants used for treating either oral or abdominal discomfort. Students’ indications were then sorted according to symptom complexes (oral discomfort, abdominal discomfort, skin care, others) and compared with the official indications stated by the BfArM. Results Of 168 participating students, 113 wrote down indications for 22 of the 25 plants surveyed. 70.80% of the students knew the correct indication for Matricaria recutita, 41.59% for Salvia officinalis, 37.17% for Foeniculum vulgare Mill. and 36.28% for Mentha piperita. Those were the highest rates of correct answers. Looking at symptom complexes (e.g., oral/ abdominal discomfort) instead of single symptoms, ≥ 10% of the students stated an indication that fell into the same symptom complex as the BfArM’s indication for 10 out of 25 plants surveyed. The most well-known plants and indications were Matricaria recutita, Salvia officinalis and Mentha x piperita. Conclusion Only a small minority of participating students know the official indications for specific phytotherapeutic drugs. Our study demonstrates that phytotherapy needs to be incorporated into the medical teaching curriculum.

Phytotherapy known and applied by head-neck cancer patients and medical students to treat oral discomfort in Germany: an observational study

“…or Matricaria recutita L. This incongruence in indications can not only be observed comparing written (folk medicine) indications with commonly practiced (students’) indications, but also when comparing official indication mandated by the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices. So, if the students’ knowledge on indications is neither sufficiently based on official indications (Büntzel et al 2022 ) or, as shown here, on indications as supplied by written folk medicine, we should carefully check: What is actually the knowledgebase of this generation of future physicians? We observed only partly an overlap with written folk medicine.…”

“…The more often a plant was mentioned, the more points a plant gained. For each symptom, we generated a 'hit list' of plants (Buentzel et al 2020;Büntzel et al 2021Büntzel et al , 2022. Then, the most often recommended plants for treating the symptoms were added to a simple questionnaire asking whether patients or medical students know of this plant (dichotomous answer "yes"/"no").…”

Medicinal Plants Used for Abdominal Discomfort – Information from Cancer Patients and Medical Students

“…According to the data available here, the source of knowledge in both populations studied (students as well as patients) is currently likely to be folk medicine rather than university education (15). Figure 3, on the other hand, illustrates the necessary transfer of knowledge between the two groups.…”

“…We developed a questionnaire, containing a TEMhitlist of medicinal plants against defined symptoms of abdominal discomfort. We used the algorithm already described by our group (14,15). To obtain this hitlist, we defined the relevant symptoms, and the type of remedy collections.…”