Symptom prevalence in a cohort of 147 patients improved with the homoeopathic medicine Ocimum canum: A multicenter, open, observational, clinical verification study

Abstract

Context: Clinical verification is an ongoing research program of the Council that verified many rare homoeopathic drugs. Aims: To clinically verify the “symptomatology” of Ocimum canum by ascertaining the prevalence of symptoms. Materials and Methods: The study was a multicenter, open, observational trial. A total of 214 patients were enrolled after matching with the available symptom compendium and eligibility criteria in seven units/institutes of the Council. The medicine was prescribed in 6C, 30C, 200C and 1M potencies as per the need of each patient, following homoeopathic principles and protocol developed by the Council. The collected data were presented in terms of descriptive statistics. Prevalence of the symptoms in the responding and nonresponding population was compared using Chi‑square or Fisher’s exact test. Results: A total of 173 complete cases were analyzed; male/female: 76/97; mean age: 31.09 years. There were “clinical successes” in 147 cases (85.0%) and failures in 26 (15.0%), judged subjectively by the physicians. A minimum of two prescriptions was considered for pick‑listing each symptom as per protocol. The number of symptoms verified was proving symptoms (n = 10), symptoms from other literature (n = 12), and new observations (n = 42). Conclusions: A total of 22 symptoms were verified, and 42 new clinical symptoms were identified. The newly observed general symptoms and polar symptoms may be worth consideration and evaluation. Further replication and estimation of likelihood ratio in general practice settings are crucial for confirmatory inclusion of the symptoms in homoeopathic literature.