Self-reliance as a strategy for primary healthcare using traditional medicine in resource poor settings: A scoping review protocol
Creators: name: Savatagi, Shivanand
name: Srinivas, Prashanth
name: Payyappallimana, Unnikrishnan
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Medicine and Health Sciences
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: Self-reliance in primary healthcare using traditional medicine

description: As health system ought to empower individuals to be responsible and decisive while taking care of their health in their own setting in terms of managing chronic health conditions and treating minor health ailments using local knowledge and resources, therefore, there is a need to reach out to people, families and communities beyond institutional setting and the way forward for this is to make people as self-reliant as possible. Therefore, self-reliance is an important approach for primary healthcare to address various issues that current health system is facing. As discussed earlier, apart from institutional health services, there are practices adopted at the level of household and community to meet primary healthcare needs in resource poor settings and one such practice is use of traditional medicine. Traditional medicine (TM) is viewed as an integral part of primary healthcare with the basic philosophy of self-reliance . Self-reliance, self-care are not new terms in the field of health as these have been used from 70s onward. In recent days, these concepts have become more evident as health policy makers have started realizing that, unless strategies are brought where people are responsible for their health, it is challenging for the current health system to achieve health for all. As primary healthcare is still the major focus in resource poor settings because of the challenges associated with accessibility, availability and affordability even in the 21st century, Therefore, self-reliance as a strategy is a potential way to tackle these challenges as it promotes the use of local knowledge, resources and local health traditions. Given the less clarity of this strategy in the context of primary healthcare and traditional medicine, current scoping study would like to carry out an in-depth analysis of literature to explore if there are any such practices and policies which enables self-reliance as a strategy to achieve primary healthcare using traditional medicine in resource poor settings. It is expected that, this scoping study would help researchers to understand factors involved in it and guide further if they want to do more empirical research to develop framework on self-reliance and test it in community settings for its implementation. Therefore, objective of scoping study is to carry out in-depth analysis of literature focusing self-reliance as a strategy and their enabling environment (policies, governance, resources and factors.) for primary healthcare in resource poor settings. This review will answer the question What are the factors that enable the adoption of self-reliance in primary healthcare delivery with or without the use of traditional medicine? How does the adoption of self-reliance work and in which context? . The scoping study will be carried out for the period of 3 months (May 2020 to July 2020). The possible outcomes of this review are - 1. An understanding of factors that determine the adoption of self-reliance/self-care/self-management as a strategy for primary healthcare using traditional medicine in resource poor settings. 2. A mapping out of policies on self-care/self-reliance and their recommendations to adopt self-reliance/self-care as a strategy for community development 3. A synthesis of results from the scoping review will be published in the scientific journal.