Abstract:
Ethnopharmacological relevance: This paper reveals the trend of knowledge and self-reported practice of
traditional insect repellent plants (TIRPs) and could serve as a baseline data to identify/formulate novel
plant-based insect repellents in the near future.
Aim of the study: Insect repellent plants usage is a long-standing and age old tradition. Thus, the major
objective of this survey was to assess the knowledge and self-reported practice of the local inhabitants
on TIRPs in Western Hararghe zone, Ethiopia.
Materials and methods: The ethnobotanical survey was conducted between January and March 2011 via
administering pre-tested questionnaire by involving the selected 150 household members in the study
area.
Results: The survey results clearly reveal that nearly 92.1% [90.1% (99/110) of female and 97.5% (39/40) of
male] of the respondents have had adequate awareness on TIRPs. Leaves were the most widely applied
plant parts and burning/smoldering the plant materials in order to generate smoke was the most common
practice. Chi-square statistical analysis shows that there was no significant difference observed in the
knowledge of the repellent plants between the gender (P-value = 0.134), average monthly income (Pvalue = 0.529) and educational status (P-value = 0.107) butthere was a significant association with the age
(P-value = 0.012) of respondents. However, repellent plants usage custom is significantly associated with
gender (P-value = 0.021) and educational status (P-value = 0.003) of the respondents but, there was such
no significant relationship between the age (P-value = 0.312) average monthly income (P-value = 0.111)
and repellent plants usage custom.
Conclusion: Conducting more ethnobotanical survey on TIRPs is extremely important in order to generate
and maintain the data-base. Besides, identifying the bio-active molecules, which are responsible for the
repellent activity and eventually conducting laboratory and field based studies to evaluate their efficacy
and safety are extremely imperative to formulatenew classes ofplant-based insect repellents/insecticides
in the near future.
