Published Paper Details:

BACKGROUND: Tinea infection is defined as circular, itchy erythematous eruptions on the various parts of body. The different variants of tinea are tinea capitis, tinea corporis, tinea cruris, tinea mannum, tinea unguinum, tinea facie and tinea barbae. The incidence of tinea infection according to WHO is 20%-25% in population. As in the concern of its treatment many antifungal topical and steroid medicines are present in conventional system of medicine but it only showed temporary relief. Homeopathy, on the other hand being the second most popular mode of treatment showed the exponential relief in the patient suffering from varieties of tinea infection. It not only cut down the recurrence of the disease like tinea, but also improves the health of patient as a whole. Due to scarcity in research related to tinea in previous years compel us to do the research on this topic. Homeopathy literature has ample amount of information related to tinea infection and these information will be utilised in this thesis work.MATERIAL AND METHODS: A prospective observational clinical study on 40 (=n) patients was carried out at the National Institute of Homoeopathy, Kolkata.Medicines were prescribed on the basis of individualization and reportorial totality through BBCR. Outcome was assessed by improvement in patient as a whole or reduction in size of the lesion, pruritus intensity scale using numeric rating scale(NRS) and DLQI (dermatology life quality index).RESULT: Study showed that out of 40 (=n) patients, moderate improvement showed by 18 patients i.e 45% and complete improvement showed by 14 patients i.e 35%. The difference in the mean value of Lesion size, pruritus intensity scale using numeric rating scale (NRS) and DLQI (dermatology life quality index) score before and after treatment was 4043.07, 5.42 and 13.72 respectively. ANOVA (analysis of variance)test was used and it showed that result is significant at p <= 0.05 which reject the null hypothesis (H0) in treatment of tinea infection.CONCLUSION: The response of homoeopathic medicine was encouraging with evidence of improvement in patient condition as a whole which shows the importance of BBCR in making totality of symptoms and selection of homoeopathic similimum during clinical practice.