Abstract
Objectives: The purpose of this study is to examine the different preferences between herbal medicine and health functional food, and analyze the reasons for the preferences to figure out the better way of promoting herbal medicine. Methods: 500 questionnaires has been handed out to the parents having elementary school students in Gyeonggi-do province, and 331 questionnaires has been collected and evaluated for this study. Results: Among the 331 responses, 58.4% were female, and 41.6% were male. The percentages of the subjects who consume health supplements and that of herbal medicines were 67.4% and 59.2% respectively. The preference rate for the health supplements was 57.6%, and for herbal medicines was 42.4%. The major reason of taking the health supplements was that they were convenient to consume(54%). The major reason for choosing herbal medicines was that people 'expect them to be more effective'(72.7%). However, the problem with Herbal medicine was their consumptions were inconvenient (39.8%), and their tastes was unfavorable. The most preferable form of herbal medication was pills(50.6%), followed by syrup(22.9%). Pertinent price for herbal medication, the participants were favorable to pay 30,000 within a week. For the question on when to start taking the herbal medication, 18 months after was the popular answers from the participants. Conclusions: Among the 331 subjects, the percentage of consuming the health supplements (67.4%) was higher than that of consuming the Herbal Medicine (59.2%). Also the preference was higher than the Herbal Medicine. The reason why the participant preferred health supplements was that they were 'easy to take', The reason for subjects' great preference in herbal medicine was based on their conception that herbal medicines were highly effective. When taking herbal medicine, participants addressed inconvenience in consuming, and unfavorable taste as the biggest problems. Also they thought that pills would be most convenient form of herbal medicine to consume. For the proper price, they were willing to pay less than 30000won, lower than a market price, per a week for the herbal medicine. Most parents thought that proper age of taking herbal medicine is ' 18 month after the birth'. Taking these into account, different perspectives on herbal medicine is necessary at the very moment.
