A. Pieratti¹, D. Crupi¹, A. De Sarro¹, G. Calapai¹

¹ Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine and Pharmacology, University of Messina, Italy.

Interviews (945) show that 74.5 % of women use principally synthetic drugs whereas 14.5 % of them use principally natural medicinal products; we had no answer by the remaining group of women. Natural products use increases with the age with maximum use starting from 40 years of age women and beyond. The major part of women use them without any knowledge of their side effects. Most cited indications are menopause, water retention, stipsis, sleep disturbances, venous insufficiency. Use of medicinal natural products by women of our region is increased but safety data (warnings, side effects and contraindications) are still poorly known by consumers.

Women are the largest consumers of healthcare and the most of consumers of natural medicinal products. They used them for typical women disorders (menopausal symptoms and menstrual disturbances) and eventually for pregnancy and lactation problems. Among the reasons of increased popularity of natural products between women, the desire to keep personal control over their health associated with dissatisfaction with conventional treatment has been cited, as well as concerns about the side effects of medications. We proposed a survey on their use by sicilian women.

Data on use of natural medicinal products (such as food supplements, herbal medicines, omeopathics) and synthetic drugs in either gender diseases or not are collected through interview by 1000 north east sicilian women aging 15-85 years. To get information about use of drugs and medicinal natural products a questionnaire was administered in ten different consulting health units for women. A second way of acting was through phone interviews. Data were collected in a data-base, and successively statistically analyzed; data on undesired reactions were also collected.