Traditional Medicine Use and Pharmacist Involvement Among Patients with Diabetes and Hypertension in Semarang, Indonesia: A Cross-sectional Study

Patients with diabetes or hypertension often take traditional medicine alongside prescribed drugs, yet little is known about how they involve pharmacists in that use. This descriptive cross-sectional study enrolled 110 adult users of traditional medicine, recruited by purposive sampling at a community health centre and a private clinic in Semarang, Indonesia, and surveyed them with a structured questionnaire. Their mean age was 59.5 ± 10.3 years, 77.3% were women and 73.6% had diabetes. Ginger (40.9%), turmeric (39.1%) and Indonesian bay leaf (34.5%) were the remedies named most often. Pharmacists were seldom involved: 78.2% of respondents had never discussed their remedies with a pharmacist, 81.8% had never asked a pharmacist for information about them and 78.2% had never reported a side effect to one. Meanwhile, 46.4% always or often combined remedies with prescribed drugs without consulting a doctor. Community pharmacists are well placed to close this counselling gap.