Searching for effective health care : a hermeneutic study of traditional herbalism in contemporary British health care

Abstract

Set in the south of England, the study applies an interpretative research methodology to expose the views of 19 adults, who were interviewed in relation to their experiences of medical herbalism.   The study reveals how participants discriminated between acute health care, which was adequately provided in the conventional setting, and everyday health care, which they found in medical herbalism.  Participants valued medical herbalism for its perceived effectiveness; where effectiveness was defined according to participants’ personal criteria, where it was judged according to their personal experiences of improved health and well-being and where confidence in its healing potential was reinforced by knowledge of its enduring history.  In medical herbalism, participants also experienced a patient-practitioner relationship that was founded on corresponding ideas about the nature and purpose of health care.  Being conducive to the development of mutual understanding, the nature of this relationship therefore emerged as a central factor in the provision of effective health care, especially in relation to the individualisation of health care treatment.

The study suggests a complementary relationship between herbal and conventional health care but signals a desire for a medical pluralism that has the potential to accommodate participants’ health care needs in totality.  It offers an alternative patient perspective on health care: one that emphasises the importance of consensus and self-determination but that also recognises the necessity for health care to have relevance and meaning, from the patient’s unique perspective.

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