Research Article
Open Access
Is Traditional-Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (T-KAP) a Barrier to Accessing Modern Health Care Facilities in the Tribal population in India? A Systematic Review
T. Singh,
P. Vaiyam,
S. Saini,
P. Banjarey,
R. S. Thakur,
D. Kumar
The tribal population has traditional knowledge and healing techniques as a rich heritage for treating their health issues. This traditional knowledge is transmitted from one generation to the next generations. The aim of this review article was to provide important insights into the level of traditional treatment patterns, beliefs, and perceptions of indigenous remedies. The peer-reviewed papers related to specific key words such as traditional knowledge, traditional attitude and practices, etc. were searched in search engines like Google Scholar, PubMed, Research Gate, etc. from the year 2000 to 2020. 42 relevant articles which covered 54 tribes from different regions of the country were included in the findings. The outcomes revealed the tribes are suffering from several communicable and non-communicable diseases. For health care, they prefer using traditional health care systems such as medicinal plants (63.51%), faith healing (29.73%), and traditional healing treatments (5.41%) and very few follow modern medicine (1.35%). Virtually all tribes are inhabitants of rural areas in difficult terrain, poverty and their living conditions are very vulnerable under traditional norms. Vital findings of the study show that the use of traditional-knowledge, attitude and practices (T-KAP) has been practiced majorly by tribes, because such communities still believe in this cultural healing technique. It is transmitted to the next generation among such tribal communities. So, this traditional knowledge, attitude, and practices are still needed for proper documentation. This research article may be useful to policy makers and in favor of public benefits.