Factors associated with herbal medicine use among women in Qazvin city: application of theory of planned behavior

Herbal medicine is one of the most widely used complementary and alternative medicine used around the world. The most effective training programs are based on theory-driven approaches that are rooted behavior change model. Among behavior change model, the effectiveness of the theory of planned behavior has been documented in previous studies. The aim of the study was to find out factors associated with herbal medicine using the theory of planned behavior (TPB) among women in Qazvin. in the cross sectional study, 792 women were selected based on clustered sampling and voluntary participation from Qazvin, Iran, in 2011-2012. Following individual interviewing, data were gathered using a self administrated questionnaire include demographic characteristics (4 items), knowledge (5 items), attitude (7 items), subjective norms (3 items), perceived behavior control (5 items), intention (3 items) and behavior (1 item). Finally, data were analyzed by SPSS 18.0 and presented with Pearson and regression testes. the mean age of women were 29.34 ± 8.99 and 92.05% of them were married and 78.9% of participants were housekeeper. There were medium to high correlations coefficients between the TPB’s constructs. Knowledge (β = 0.195, P< 0.01), attitude (β = 0.227, P< 0.01), subjective norms (β = 0.071, P< 0.05), perceived behavior control (β = 0.422, P< 0.01) and intention (β = 0.138, P< 0.01) were the main predictors of the herbal medicine usage among women. In general, TPB constructs were able to predict 57% of variance for herbal medicine usage among women. The results indicated that herbal medicine usage mainly can be predicted by PBC and attitude respectively. In spite of the importance of two variables, all of the TPB constructs should be considered for designing interventions toward forming conscious herbal medicine usage in the society.