SELF-MEDICATION PRACTICES AND PERCEPTIONS AMONG UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL STUDENTS OF MULTAN MEDICAL & DENTAL COLLEGE, MULTAN

Asif Noor, Ejaz Hussain Sahu, Muhammad Umer Abdullah, Aftab Yousaf
1970 Pakistan Journal of Public Health  
Self-medication can be defined as "the drugs which are used to treat self-diagnosed disorders or indications, or the irregular or continued use of a prescribed drug for persistent or recurrent disease or symptoms." Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study was performed to understand the perceptions and practices about self-medication among students admitted to one of medical colleges in Pakistan located in Multan. A structured Questionnaire was distributed to the consenting students. The
more » ... a were coded, entered and analyzed by using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20.0. Out of 95 medical students 47.7% (n=45) were males and 52.3% (n=55) were females. Results: Among participants, self-medication was found in 98% (n=93) cases. Among self-medication respondents, more than 50% treated themselves only once while 32% twice, 12% thrice and only 2.1 % more than thrice. Self-medication was equally common in 3rd year, fourth year and final year medical students. While 24.2% of respondents perceived as a good practice, 42.1% took it as an acceptable practice while33.7% were of opinion that it was a totally unacceptable practice. The study revealed different reasons for self-medication and found that the most common reason was non-seriousness of disease i.e 43.2%, followed by convenience / time factor 42.1%, Cost saving 13.7% and least one was the non-availability of physician 1.1% . Regarding the use of drugs, antibiotics were the most common class used as self-medication 27.4%, followed by anti allergics 23.2%, vitamins 17.9%, pain killers 16.8% and antacids in 14.7 % cases. Conclusion: The study results indicate that Self-medication was common among medical students from clinical classes and most of students treated themselves at least once.
doi:10.32413/pjph.v7i1.26 fatcat:btgkufbsfvd7dm7i7q6b2ttgii