A study of contemporary medical quacks in Aba : their impact of the community

people patronise quacks is one the questions behind the socilogists
concern with good medicare as a factor of secioeoonomic development of any
country •. This studr, is an attempt therefore to answer the question as it
pertains to Aba town in Nigeria. The methodology adopted in this study
included the use of questionnaires, ora:t. interviews, non-participant observation
and the use of public or officia l doc-qments.·
Both structured and unstructured ( ,open-ended) questions were used in this
study. The essence of the later was to give the respondents the opportunity
of answering in their own ways expressing thêtr opinions fully without the
researche, r giving suggestive answers. Personal characteristics such as
Sex, age, marital status, educational qualifications and incarne were sought in
the questionaire. Data collected from the respondents were used to .testthe hypotheses formulated.
The oral interview . both structure and unstructured questions.
It was meant to gather more information which were not included inthe
questionnaire.
Non participant observation was used because the medi<lal quaks might
change from what they practice to adhering toi:lheir professional ethicsifi they
noticed that they were under observation.
Finally, public or official.documents provided more information
statisfical data. This information would helped to make inference after
all other data so colleoted has been analysed.
The research findings indicated that from the analysis of data, our
fmrst :substaintive hypothesis was accepted which states that the medical
quacks are useful to Aba inhabitants. For the second hypothesis we rejected
the substantive and accepted the null hypothesis whibh states that the quacks
do not handle their jobs as efficiently as trained medical personnel.
The research findings also show that the patronage <:î the quamks is not
caused by one factor but a oonglomeration of other factors. This study tried