[The popular use of therapeutic herbs in body care].
It is about a quantitative and exploratory study aimed at describing the clients' knowledge and use of phytotherapy. The theoretical referral derived from anthropology. The adopted instruments were semi-structured forms applied to 300 users in a Health Polyclinic in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.


RESULTS
60,4% of the subjects use herbs and 63,4% have acquired the knowledge on medicinal plants with the family. The reasons for using herbal therapy were: sensation of improvement (32,2%) and the natural character of the herbs (33,5%). The adoption of herbs meets the subjectivity of the subject in his/her social and cultural context and remains as a complement or supplement to the official therapeutics.
Enfermeiro e psicólogo, Prof. Titular do Departamento de Enfermagem Medico-cirúrgica da Escola de Enfermagem Aurora de Afonso Costa da UFF. eneaspsi@hotmail.com
Enéas Rangel
ER
Teixeira
Jairo Freitas
JF
de Nogueira
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001938:Brazil; D003469:Culture; D004522:Educational Status; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D008517:Phytotherapy / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014505:Urban Population