A survey of patients visiting an Ayurvedic teaching hospital for factors influencing the decision to choose ayurveda as a health care provider.

STUDY BACKGROUND: In a pluralistic health care delivery model, it is important to assess whether the individual's health care choices are based upon evidences of efficacy and safety. Since the essence of medical pluralism lies in the fact that all such systems are equally accessible to a seeker, in such situation, it is highly relevant to check what defines such choices in real life. OBJECTIVE: To identify the factors influencing the health care choices in a subpopulation seeking Ayurveda health care in an Ayurvedic teaching hospital. MATERIALS AND METHOD: The study was an all-inclusive cross sectional survey, done on randomly selected out patients visiting an Ayurveda teaching hospital. The data was collected using a 21 items questionnaire refined through pilot testing from 7.9.2017 to 30.9.2017. RESULTS: The data of 289 respondents who have given their consent were included in statistical analysis. Out of 21 variables studied for their agreement or disagreement in the study population 8 were found to have a significant proportion in favour of agreement. Among these relative safety (Item 9); disease eradicating potential (Item 14); belief (Item 3) and indirect evidences of efficacy (Item 4) were found to have high significance (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Participants chose Ayurveda treatment due to its perceived safety and probability of helping in a particular clinical condition. Contrary to the common perception, enabling factors like availability, accessibility and affordability were given less importance by the participants in making health care choices related to Ayurveda.

Institutional library reforms are needed to improve ayurveda education, practice and research: Inferences from a case study.

Libraries have always been the integral components of the academic institutions world over. Earlier known for housing the spectrum of books permitting their ready access to knowledge seekers, libraries of current age are no more confined spaces with limited functions. With the advancing information technology, the conventional definition of a library is changing to accommodate newer roles and challenges. Twenty-first century academic libraries are extending beyond the walls of their individual institutions and are evolving as open access information spaces, dealing with intelligent sharing through social communication and networking technologies. Despite such massive changes in the information storage and retrieval patterns across the globe, libraries at Ayurveda institutions in India seem by and large unbothered and unaffected. Poor educational and research standards in Ayurveda seem to have direct links with libraries contributing minimally to academic exchange and progress. An SCONUL survey conducted for the first time in any ayurvedic library setting in the country came as an eye opener stating clearly that Ayurveda institutional libraries require a major reform first to bring them at par with other academic libraries and subsequently to evolve them as the nucleus of knowledge fostering. These setups direly need a hand of help to become eligible for contributing what they are really meant to.