Introduction:

the professionals devoted to natural and traditional medicine should study and publish the scientific evidences for its rational and safe use.

Objectives:

to identify scientific articles related to clinical researches on natural and traditional medicine in Cuban medical journals and to describe some of their characteristics.

Materials and methods:

a cross-sectional descriptive study; the authors analyzed the original articles published in the period 2007-2018 on researches made in Cuban people and in Cuba in six Cuban medical journals: Plantas Medicinales, Medicina Natural y Tradicional, Medicina General Integral, Estomatología, Medicina Militar y Farmacia. The year of publication, kind of study (descriptive, analytic, clinical trial), main variable (efficacy, safeness, others), and province where they were identified; in the case of clinical trial: the used modality, the patient's disease and the level of the health care where they took place were also identified.

Results:

36 articles were found; the years when they were published the most were 2007 and 2016; 69.4 % were clinical trials; most of them were carried out in La Habana (41.6 %). In clinical trials, the most studied modalities were acupuncture (28.0 %) and physiotherapy (20.0 %); they were used more in patients with dental diseases (28.0 %); they were used mainly at the primary health care (64.0 %).

Conclusions:

there were insufficient the articles related to clinical researches on natural and traditional medicine published in six journals approaching these themes; this situation attempts against the use of this therapeutic use, based on scientific evidences.

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