Knowledge about the effects of medicinal plants against COVID-19 among dental students - A questionnaire study

ABSTRACT

Background and Aim: Natural herbal medicines have long been an important cure/remedy in traditional Indian practices for treating various diseases. The current study aims at assessing the knowledge about medicinal plants and their effect on COV-ID-19 in dental students to understand the effects and advantages of using medicinal plants against such diseases. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional survey was initiated among dental students in a private dental institution, Chennai;about the effects of medicinal plants against COVID-19. Nearly 100 students responded to the survey. Data have been collected with help of SPSS software and data has been analyzed and plotted in graphs. Inferential statistics was done using the Chi-square test and a p-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results and Conclusion: More than 80% of the population were aware of the effects of medicinal plants against COVID-19. Few parameters like mode of transmission, diseases related to coronavirus, and diagnostic test for COVID-19 were associated with the gender of population and it is found that males were more aware than females, even though there was no statistical significance. Conclusion: The future scope of this study is to gain knowledge about the effect of natural medicinal plants against COVID-19 and also to investigate the effects of the plants for therapeutic use. © IJCRR.