ATTITUDINAL BEHAVIOUR OF RURAL DWELLERS TOWARDS UTILIZATION OF SELECTED MEDICINAL PLANTS FOR MALARIA TREATMENT IN EGBEDA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF OYO STATE, NIGERIA

The study investigated the attitudinal behavior of rural dwellers towards utilization of selected non-timber forest products, NTFPs medicinal plants for malaria treatment in Egbeda Local Government Area of Oyo State. A well-structured questionnaire was used for data collection from 120 respondents through purposive sampling procedure. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for the study analysis. The result showed that about 55.9% of the respondents were male with about 68.6% of the respondents within the age range of 46-55 years. Majority of them had primary education (43.1%) and farming (80.4%) is their major occupation. The finding also showed that a total of 14 species of medicinal plants were used for malaria treatment by the respondents in the study area. Results revealed that medicinal plants part frequently used by the respondents were leaves of bitter leaf (100%), tea bush (l00%), siam weed (100%), pawpaw (97.9%) and moringa (97.9%), The extracts were consumed in liquid form by the respondents. Majority of the respondents strongly agree to the use of medicinal plants for malaria treatment. There was significant relationship between the factors contributing to utilization of selected medicinal plants and attitude of respondents (r = -0.322, p = 0.001). Hence, it was recommended that government agencies and non-governmental agencies should put more effort to work by ensuring conservation and establishments of these medicinal plants as natural way of building immune system of man against malaria parasites.