Plantas medicinales utilizadas para tratar la fiebre en menores de cinco años en la comunidad de Acchayacu, Tarqui, 2017

Abstract

Background: Ancestral medicine has been applied for many centuries in our country, and has been transmitted from generation to generation in rural, mestizo and indigenous communities. There is a wide variety of medicinal plants to treat different diseases, in particular fever is a symptom that persists in multiple diseases and that is of multifactorial origin. Objective: Identify the medicinal plants used to treat fever in children under 5 years old in the community of Acchayacu, Tarqui, 2017. Materials and methods: the research is qualitative, using the technique of the focal group, which consists of 4 mothers of children under 5 years of age belonging to the community of Acchayacu. The Atlas Ti statistical program is used to analyze the results. Results: The parts of the plant most frequently used by the mothers of the community are the leaves for infusion and the flowers for the baths, these plants are chamomile, cedron, water of penco, mortiño and violets. The level of knowledge that mothers have about the practices used to treat fever is insufficient, since they do not make the correct handling of the child with fever, they do not know the correct temperature ranges to measure the fever and they do not know, they recognize the warning signs a complication due to fever. Conclusions: The use of medicinal plants by mothers of the community of Acchayacu has a marked cultural behavior, where beliefs in God prevail, in natural products and in the traditions of generations. The most used medicinal plants are chamomile, lemon balm, cedron, penco water, mortiño and violets, which exert an analgesic and antipyretic effect with very good acceptance by the child