Prevalence and Practice of Self-Medication: A Community based Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: According to WHO, self-Medication is defined as “the selection and use of medicines by individuals to treat self-recognized illnesses or symptoms”. Lack of knowledge about self-medication can result in the illogical use of pharmaceuticals, which can have major detrimental effects on health and increase the financial burden. This study will assess the prevalence and determinants of self-medication in community and will help us in educating and creating awareness to decrease the self-medication and its related adverse effect.Objectives:1.To assess the prevalence, knowledge and practice of self-medication.2.To study the association of sociodemographic variables and self-medication Methodology: The community based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in urban field practice area of tertiary health care center. Participants above 18 years of age were interviewed by predesigned and pretested questionnaire using sociodemographic variables, knowledge and practice of self-medication. Total 130 participants were enrolled in the study using 60% prevalence in previous study. Results: The prevalence of self-medication in the study was 55.4%. Female participants were practicing more self-medication than males and found to be statistically significant. Commonest reasons for self-medication were minor aliments (56.9%) followed by ease and convenience etc. The commonest illness for self-medication were pain (66.6%) followed by fever (55.6%) etc. The most widely used drug for self-medication were analgesics and anti-inflammatory (66.6%), and antipyretics (63.8%).