QUALITY MANAGEMENT OF HERBAL AND TRADITIONAL MEDICINE AND HEALTHCARE PROVISION IN MUKONO DISTRICT.

Abstract

This study investigated how quality management of herbal and traditional medicine affected health care provision in Mukono district. The objective of the study were to examine how customer satisfaction affects health care provision, to examine how conformity to standards affects health care provision, to find out how product uniformity affects health care provision and to assess how the level of quality improvement affects health care provision. Although the study findings show that the quality of herbal and traditional medicines is compromised during production thus affecting customer satisfaction, conformity to standards, product uniformity and the general quality of the drug there was still a significant positive relationship between quality management of herbal and traditional medicine and healthcare provision. The study used a descriptive case study and both qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed. Data was collected using questionnaires and interviewing individuals to protect the secrecy embedded in the art of traditional practitioners practice. The main respondents were traditional health practitioners and herbal medicine consumers. Opinion leaders and policy makers and local administrators provided information to verify data from the main respondents. A check list of the local named provided by the informants were crosschecked with scientific documentation to ensure relevant information on traditional medicines for malaria was targeted. Data analysis was done using computer software SPSS 16.0. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis was used to determine the mean, correlation, and regression analysis respectively. The study confirmed that there was significant positive relationship between the independent variables used in the study and the dependent variable of healthcare quality. The study recommended that quality should not be compromised to improve health care provision through use of herbal and traditional medicine in Mukono District.