TO STUDY THE UTILITY OF RUBRICS FROM BOGER BOENNINGHAUSEN’S CHARACTERISTICS AND REPERTORY IN THE MANAGEMENT OF ACUTE FEBRILE ILLNESS IN THE AGE GROUP OF 18-40 YEARS - AN EXPERIMENTAL NON CONTROLLED STUDY

INTRODUCTION

Acute febrile illness is characterized by the sudden onset of fever often accompained by chills headache muscle aches fatigue and malaise and is a nonspecific manifestation of infectious diseases. It is commonly prevalent in society and it is generally overlooked and self medicated which can lead to patients deterioration  Allied sciences provide vast treatment which is many times not as per the suceptibilty of patients and also many times they are ineffective due to their overdosage and side effects. Homoeopathy being an Holistic an individualistic effective mode of treatment considers patient as a whole and deals with Mental generals Physical generals and particulars symptoms of the individual. Repertory serving as an effective tool for selection of similimum provides a variety of rubrics which are effective and used for a bedside prescription In this study rubrics from the Boger-Boenninghausen Characteristic and Repertory for managing acute febrile illness which explains the utility of homeopathic treatments. While homeopathy is widely practiced, there is limited clinical data comparing its effectiveness against conventional treatments for acute febrile illnesses in adults. Additionally this study could explore about individualization based on rubrics affects treatment outcomes in terms of symptom relief recovery time and overall patient improvement. A well designed experimental non controlled study focusing on the use of homeopathic remedies, guided by the Boger-Boenninghausen charasteristics and Repertory could provide valuable insights into its clinical application and help establish evidence-based practices

AIM AND OBJECTIVES

**Primary
Objectives** To Study the
Utility of Rubrics from Boger Boenninghausens Characteristics and Repertory
in the management of Acute Febrile Illness in the age group of 18 to 40
years.

Other Objectives 1 To study clinical presentation of Acute Febrile Illness.

Other Objectives 2 To compare pre and post oral temperature values in acute febrile illness.

Other Objectives 3 To study the actual time period required to improve the individual of acute febrile illness.

 MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY

 1. Type of study designAn Experimental Non-Controlled Study.

2. SettingCases will be collected from the OPD of the Institute.

3. Duration of study18 months

4. Method of selection of study subjects:

INCLUSION CRITERIA

1. Patient with 18to 40 years of age will be considered.

2. Oral temperature (by using mercury thermometer) of individual having 99F to 104F i.e Low to moderate grade fever for more than 2 or 3 days will be taken for study.

3. Patient of both gender will be considered.

4. Patients with fever secondary to common localized diseases like Urinary tract infection, abscess , boil, eye infection, ear infection etc will also be considered.

5. Patient who are taking any other ineffective medications for fever.

EXCLUSION CRITERIA

1. Patient who are having temperature more than 104F.

2. Patient who are having fever with severe systemic diseases (pneumonia, liver cirrhosis,renal calculi etc.) will be excluded.

3. Patient with suspected immunocompromised disease and suspected malignancies or pre-malignancy will be excluded.

4. Patient who are Pregnant and lactating female will be excluded.

SUBJECT WITHDRAWAL CRITERIA

1. Patients who does not wish to continue the treatment.

2. Patients who do not follow up regularly.

3. Case requiring emergency management in acute febrile illness.

 5. Method of selection of comparison or control group  Not applicable

6. Matching Criteria  Not applicable

  8. Specification of instruments and related measurements

1. Complete Homoeopathic Case Taking Proforma will be used in each case.

2. Temperature values will be recorded for acute febrile illness in each case, only pre and post temperature values will be studied for statistical calculation of study.

3. Intensity of Clinical features pre and post treatment will be considered for acute febrile illness in each case.

4. Actual time period required to improve the temperature in the individuals will be considered for acute febrile illness.

5. Temperature value will be recorded on every 2nd day by telephonic means, maintaining fever chart and follow up.

6. Will be doing CBC as per requirement of case.

7. Those patients who are having pain will be assessed by the VAS scale to asses improvement.

8. Temperature chart for OPD patients

 Outcome will be assessed in terms of:

1. Improved

2. Not improved

 1. Sample size45 patients will be selected.

2. Sampling techniqueNon probability Purposive sampling based on inclusion and exclusion criteria.

3. Method for data collection relevant to objective

 1. Purposive Sampling based on inclusion and exclusion criteria will be done.

2. Detailed homoeopathic case taking will be done as per the proforma and case processing will be done in detail so as to aid selection of similimum by using Boger Boenninghausen Characteristics and Repertory.

3. Cases will be recorded from the Institute’s OPD.

4. Each case will be studied for around 2 weeks

5. Depending upon the clinical presentation of the patient and totality erected, the patient will be administered appropriate Similimum.

4. Study Instrument or Data Collection Tools

1. Complete Homoeopathic case taking format to form a totality.

2. Appropriate reference books like Homoeopathic Materia Medica, Medicine books, Repertory Textbooks, different Homoeopathic journals and research papers will be considered.

3. HOMPATH CLASSIC Software will be used for repertorisation through The Boger Boenninghausen Characteristic and Repertory.

5. Data management and analysis Procedure

1. Framing of totality of symptoms- will be done as per the principles of Homoeopathy.

2. Selection of remedy - Individualized Homoeopathic Medicines based on totality of symptoms.

3. The Posology - Appropriate potency will be selected based on the susceptibility of each case. Potency will be changed when required.

4. Duration of study - 18 months

5. Duration of each case  Each case will be studied for up to 14 days or till recovery, whichever will be earlier

6. Duration of follow up  Each case will be followed up at the interval of 24 hours or earlier if required till improvement of case..

 6. Plan for Statistical analysis

1. Data collected will be compiled on to a MS Office excel worksheet and will be subjected to statistical analysis using an appropriate package like SPSS software. Descriptive statistics like frequency andpercentage  of categorical data, mean and Standard deviation of numerical data in each time interval will be depicted.

2. Normality of numerical data will be checked using Shapiro  Wilk test or Kolmogorov Smirnov test. Depending on the normality of data, statistical tests will be determined.

3. Intra group comparisons for a numerical continuous data following a normal distribution will be done using paired t test (for 2 observations) else a non parametric substitute like Wilcoxon signed rank test (for 2 observations) will be used.

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