Traditional Medicine and Side Effects: A Comparative Analysis of Patients and Doctors in Chennai

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-575-1_19How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Traditional medicine; side effects; sustainability; healthcare innovation; holistic treatment; Chennai

Abstract

Traditional medicine (TM) has continued playing a valuable role in healthcare systems based on the use of indigenous knowledge, locally procured materials, and cultural practices. Plant-based remedies are still in use in India especially in the urban setting in combination with modern medical practices. The study explores the nature and the intensity of the side effects of traditional medicine, and the perceived dissimilarity of patients and physicians in Chennai. Quantitative, cross-sectional research design was used to collect primary data by filling structured questionnaires during the period between May and November 2023. A total of 605 respondents fell under the scope of the study, which consisted of 502 patients, sampled by the use of the stratified random sampling method and 103 physicians, sampled by the purposive sampling method.

To research the correlation between the length of treatment and the occurrence of side effects, the analysis involved inferential statistics such as cross tabulation and chi square test in combination with descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages. Findings demonstrate that traditional medicine is considered to be safe, on the whole: more than 71 out of 100 doctors and almost 89 out of 100 patients did not report any severe adverse reactions. A smaller percentage of respondents (10–18%) reported minor adverse effects include gastrointestinal or skin discomfort distress most of which were transient and went away on their own without medical help. Longer treatment durations may marginally raise the risk of mild side effects according to the chi-square analysis which found a statistically significant correlation between the incidence of side effects and treatment duration.

The overall findings highlights that TM remains as one of the best choice for holistic, low-cost, and culturally adapted healthcare therapy. Also, pertaining to policy makers, the results recognize the complementary role of TM within urban health systems for the need of standardized treatment guidelines, safety monitoring mechanisms, and integrative healthcare frameworks. Besides, strengthening the regulation and practitioner awareness will eventually increase patients’ safety at the same time preserving the indigenous knowledge and promoting the sustainable healthcare delivery.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - M. K. Nissi
AU  - S. Chinnammai
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/05/06
TI  - Traditional Medicine and Side Effects: A Comparative Analysis of Patients and Doctors in Chennai
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Dynamics of Environment, Sustainability, and Gender Disparities: A Holistic Dialogue for Inclusive Futures (ICDESGD 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 312
EP  - 321
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-575-1_19
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-575-1_19
ID  - Nissi2026
ER  -