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Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) Towards Medicinal Plants among Malaysian Consumers

Nalini Arumugam*

This study aims to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of consumers towards medicinal plants (MPs). Besides that, this study also determined the association between consumers demographic profiles and MPs practice. A survey was performed among 300 MP consumers (Kelantan=100, Terengganu=100 and Pahang=100) from East Coast Economic Region (ECER) using self-administered questionnaire. The findings indicated that 52% of consumers are females, Muslims and Malay. Most of them living in rural (67%) than urban (33%) areas. The results from Chi-Square statistic showed that education level (p=0.033) and locality (p=0.008) have significant relationships with the level of knowledge. Marital status has significant relationships with the level of practice (p=0.010) of medicinal plants. A significant difference between the knowledge (p=0.00) and attitude (p=0.00) towards practice of medicinal plants was also found. There was a moderate relationship between consumers’ knowledge on MPs and their practice using MPs (p=0.000), whereas there was a strong relationship between their attitude towards MPs and their practice (p=0.000). This study recorded that consumers’ attitude has a stronger relationship towards their practice compared to the knowledge.