Estudo quali-quantitativo das plantas medicinais empregadas pela população rural do município de São Paulo das Missões, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil

Abstract

The phytotherapeutic knowledge is originated from the process of systematization of the plants, which generated a vast medicinal pharmacopoeia, present in many traditional societies. The objective of the present study was to characterize the sociocultural profile of phytotherapy users and to carry out a qualitative and quantitative survey of the plants used by the rural population of São Paulo das Missões. Data collection was done in a research project under CAAE 58333316.0.0000.5564 number. Sociocultural data related to gender and held its descriptive and statistical analysis. About botanical information, these were described and quantified by the ethnobotanical indexes, use value (UV), relative importance (RI) and concordance regarding the main corrected use (CCU) of the species, family use value (FUV) and the informant agreement ratio (IAR) of the categories of diseases, according to the 10th edition of the international statistical classification of diseases and problems related to health (ICD-10). Regarding the sociocultural profile, the predominance of women (80%) was observed. The age group of the participants ranged from 26 to 80 years, with 54.3% of these, being 55 or older. Regarding schooling, 80% of the participants do not have complete elementary education, highlighting the lower level of schooling. Of the socio-cultural variables analyzed by the chi- square distribution statistics, medical care and the way of acquisition of phytotherapeutic knowledge showed a highly significant dependence (P-value<0,01) on the gender category. While the level of treatment satisfaction presented a significant dependence (P-value<0,05). Regarding the ethnobotanical survey, 183 species were identified, with predominance of exotic species, positioned in 59 botanical families. Among the most cited species stands the Cymbopogon citratus (n = 27). In addition, it was noted that the family with the highest specific richness were Asteraceae and Lamiaceae, both with 26 species. Of the botanical variables analyzed statistically, only the category contraindication of use had no statistical dependence while the others had a significant dependence (p-value<0.01). From the quantitative indexes, it was observed that on species-related analyzes, Cymbopogon citratus was the species with higher UV and CCU, 0,73 and 59,3%, respectively. IR indicated the existence of 24 species of high value of versatile use, with emphasis on Origanum majorana (1,90). The families with higher values of FUV were Equisetaceae, Malvaceae and Celastraceae, respectively. Thirty- eight diseases were mentioned by the informants, which were grouped into 18 categories of diseases, most notably the category Diseases of the digestive system with the highest FCI (0,76), followed by Diseases of the genitourinary system and Diseases of the respiratory system.