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Ethnopharmacobotanical study on the medicinal plants used by herbalists in Sulaymaniyah Province, Kurdistan, Iraq

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, January 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#36 of 741)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (92nd percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (95th percentile)

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1 news outlet
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8 X users
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2 Facebook pages

Citations

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106 Dimensions

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229 Mendeley
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Title
Ethnopharmacobotanical study on the medicinal plants used by herbalists in Sulaymaniyah Province, Kurdistan, Iraq
Published in
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, January 2016
DOI 10.1186/s13002-016-0081-3
Pubmed ID
Authors

Hiwa M. Ahmed

Abstract

Medicinal plants still play an important role in the Kurdish community. Sulaymaniyah Province in South Kurdistan (Iraq) has a great diversity of plants, including medicinal plants, yet very few scattered ethnobotanical studies conducted in Kurdistan are available in the scientific literature. Thus the study of Kurdish ethnobotany may be crucial for understanding local medicinal plant uses and their relationships to surrounding areas. Therefore, the objective of this investigation was to document traditional medicinal plant uses among healers of southern Kurdistan. An ethnobotanical survey was conducted to document traditional knowledge on medicinal plants uses among traditional healers in the Province of Sulaymaniyah during 2014 and 2015. The data were collected by interviewing 45 traditional healers (36 males and 9 females between the ages of 25 and 80 years) who retain traditional knowledge on medicinal plants. Furthermore, the use value (UV) of taxa was determined and informant consensus factor (ICF) was calculated for the medicinal plants included in the study. Further analysis was carried out to compare the field data with the Kurdish ethnobotanical literature. The present study found a total of sixty-six plant species, belonging to sixty-three genera within thirty-four plant families, used to treat ninghty-nine different types of ailments and diseases. The most important family was Lamiaceae (7 species), followed by Apiaceae, Asteraceae, and Fabaceae (6 species each). The most frequently used parts were leaves (46 %), followed by flowers (15 %), and seeds (10 %). The most common preparation method was decoction (68 %), whereas few taxa were consumed as a vegetable (13 %) or ingested in powder form (10 %). The respiratory issues category had the highest ICF value (0.68), followed by inflammations and women's diseases (0.58 and 0.54, respectively). The highest UVs were recorded for the species Zingiber officinale (0.48), Matricaria chamomilla (0.37), Adiantum capillus-veneris (0.31), Thymus vulgaris (0.31) and Pimpinella anisum (0.31). A comparison with previous ethnobotanical studies conducted in Kurdistan (especially within the territory of present-day Turkey) and surrounding areas showed that several medicinal plant reports recorded in the current investigation are new to Kurdish ethnomedicine, and that they have possibly been influenced by other scholarly medical traditions. The present study demonstrates that the area is rich in medicinal plant knowledge. The information reported by the traditional healers of this region is invaluable for further research in the field of cross-cultural ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 8 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 229 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 1 <1%
Unknown 228 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 40 17%
Student > Master 28 12%
Student > Bachelor 28 12%
Student > Doctoral Student 14 6%
Professor > Associate Professor 11 5%
Other 35 15%
Unknown 73 32%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 41 18%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 27 12%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 19 8%
Medicine and Dentistry 9 4%
Social Sciences 7 3%
Other 36 16%
Unknown 90 39%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 20. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 22 March 2020.
All research outputs
#1,647,134
of 23,211,181 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
#36
of 741 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#31,185
of 398,519 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
#1
of 21 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,211,181 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 92nd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 741 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 5.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 398,519 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 21 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.