A cross-sectional study on self-medication practices among the rural population of Meghalaya

Abstract

Klemenc-Ketis Z, Mitrovic D Patients' use of and attitudes towards self-medication in rural and remote Slovenian family medicine practices: a cross-sectional multicentre study Introduction: Self-medication is very common in the general population, but its prevalence can differ according to the place of residence. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of self-medication in patients attending rural and remote family physicians, and to detect the important factors that are associated with it. Methods: A cross-sectional multicentre study was performed in 24 rural and remote family medicine practices in Slovenia was performed. The aim was to include 720 patients who visited their family physicians on a particular day. The authors used a validated questionnaire on self-medication, which consisted of questions about demographic characteristics (sex, age, education and working status), questions about health status, questions about self-medication practices, and questions about attitudes towards self-medication. The level of participants' trust in different sources of medical information was measured by a five-point Likert scale. The participants were asked to take into account the year 2013 when completing the questionnaire. Results: Of 720 invited patients, 371 (51.5%) completed the questionnaire. There were 233 (62.8%) women in the sample. The mean age of the participants was 48.1 (±15.1) years. Self-medication was practised by 300 (80.9%) participants. In multivariate analysis, the variables independently associated with self-medication were information on self-medication obtained from pharmacists, and information on self-medication obtained from relatives. Additionally, some other variables had high odds ratios such as information on self-medication obtained from books, information on self-medication obtained from media, and reason for self-medication: burdening physicians. © Z Klemenc-Ketis, D Mitrovic, 2017. A Licence to publish this material has been given to James Cook University, http://www.jcu.edu.au 2 Conclusions: The practices of self-medication in rural Slovenia as reported by patients can be defined as moderately safe. People tend to seek more information on self-medication but the main sources for this are lay informants. Further studies are needed to explore the safety of such practices.

Global Scenario of Self Medication: A Review of Literature

“…Antipyretic, analgesics and antacids are most commonly used drugs for selfmedication. (Parakh, Sharma, Kothari, Parakh, & Parakh, 2013) (Marak, Borah, Bhattacharyya, & Talukdar, 2016). The study conducted in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal showed that non-steroidal analgesic, antiinflammatory and antipyretic drugs were mostly preferred for the treatment of fever and headaches.…”

“…Patients were also not fully aware about the ill effects of self-medication such as adverse drug reaction, drug-drug interactions, and other side effects. (Parakh, Sharma, Kothari, Parakh, & Parakh, 2013) (Marak, Borah, Bhattacharyya, & Talukdar, 2016) (Nair, Rajmohanan, & Kumaran, 2013).…”

Self-medication practice and associated factors among adult household members in Meket district, Northeast Ethiopia, 2017

“…According to such studies, level of education, pervious experience of self-medication, occupation, lack of medical insurance, lack of time to visit physicians, low income [23–25], female sex [26], urban residece [27], youth age [28] and men [29, 30] were factors associated with SMP. Despite the negative consequences of self-medication and its high spread, studies on its prevalence and associated factors in this study area are limited.…”

Self-Medication Practice Among Consumers in Sana’a City

“…The prevalence of self-medication practice in different countries was ranged from 39% to 94% [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. The prevalence in this study was 90.7% which suggests that self-medication practice in Sana'a city is among the highest.…”

“…This was expected as the pharmacy is the main supply for medication. Other sources like family member [18,20,23] and media [21] were found to be common in other studies as well.…”