Influence of spirituality on bitter kola consumption among Pretoria residents in response to COVID-19 and related Illnesses
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Date
Authors
Orogun, Daniel
Koenig, Harold G.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
MDPI
Abstract
The agrarian continent of Africa has many fruits with nutritional, medicinal and spiritual
values. Regardless, Africa leads the statistics of poor healthcare globally. Two major challenges in
Africa’s healthcare system are poor access and the high cost of medical healthcare. Among others, the
effects of such challenges include low responsiveness to medical treatment and a high mortality rate.
However, it seems the nosophobia that accompanied the global mortality rate during the COVID-19
pandemic may have triggered a spiritually influenced alternative. One of the traditional alternatives
was a subscription to Garcinia Kola, popularly known as Bitter Kola (BK). This article, majoring in
spiritual and not psychological influence, raised a hypothetical question: does spirituality influence
Africans’ traditional response to COVID-19? To answer this question, Sunnyside in Pretoria was
chosen as a demography to investigate the hypothesis. Data were collected via mixed research
methods. There were 16 qualitative respondents, including sellers, herbalists and clergies, and
75 consumers as quantitative respondents under probability sampling. The results analysed using
Excel and Python’s regression analysis demonstrated strong connections between consumers’ spiritual
motivations, the sales period, the sales rate, and the swift traditional response to the pandemic
and related illnesses. The outcome validated the influence of spirituality on 60.9% of quantitative
respondents and showed how 25–72% responded to COVID-19 symptoms with BK. Likewise, 87.5%
of qualitative respondents consumed BK via indigenous spiritual knowledge in response to the
pandemic. Subsequently, this article discussed the benefits, limitations and lessons of spiritual
influence on BK consumption in the post-COVID-19 era
Description
Keywords
Bitter kola, Motivation, Indigenous knowledge, Influence, Spirituality, SDG-03: Good health and well-being, SDG-10: Reduced inequalities, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), COVID-19 pandemic
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG-03:Good heatlh and well-being
SDG-10:Reduces inequalities
SDG-10:Reduces inequalities
Citation
Orogun, D. & Koenig, H.G. 2024, 'Influence of spirituality on bitter kola consumption among Pretoria residents in response to COVID-19 and related illnesses',
Religions, vol. 15, no. 12, art.1508, doi : 10.3390/rel15121508.