<p>Self-Medication and Associated Factors Among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Care at Kemisie General Hospital, North East Ethiopia</p>

Abstract

Introduction: Self-medication is an important part of daily self-care, without the supervision of health professionals. It is commonly practiced by pregnant women all over the world and may result in maternal and fetal risks. Hence, this study assessed self-medication practices and associated factors among pregnant women attending Kemisie General Hospital. Methods: A facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted using a structured questionnaire on pregnant women who were attending antenatal care at Kemisie General Hospital. A simple random sampling technique was employed to select the study participants. Descriptive and inferential statistics were computed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20. Results: Among 223 pregnant women, 60 (26.9%; 95% CI: 20.9%, 32.9%) and 111 (48.9%; 95% CI: 43%, 58%) practiced self-medication on conventional and herbal medicine, respectively. The predictors of self-medication of conventional medicine among pregnant women were prior experience to the drug (P-value: 0.

Self-medication practice with modern and herbal medicines and associated factors among pregnant women attending antenatal care at Mizan-Tepi University Teaching Hospital, Southwest Ethiopia

“…The most prevalent symptoms or illnesses that pregnant women in this study self-medicated were headache (52.14%), common cold (14.53%), and cough (11.1%). This result was consistent with studies conducted at Kemisie [22], Jimma [15], Harar [23], DR Congo [5], and Nigeria [6], in which headache/fever, common cold, respiratory infections, and gastrointestinal disorders were among the frequent conditions for which expectant mothers used conventional drugs for self-medication.…”

“…This study pointed out that the major sources of modern drugs for self-medication were private drug retail outlets (74.36%) which is in line with the studies done at Jimma [ 15 ] and Kemisie [ 22 ], which revealed that the majority of the pregnant mothers, 72.1% and 50% obtained the medications from private drug retail outlets, respectively. Strong/strict regulation of private drug retail outlets is thus essential to secure proper utilization of medications.…”

Modern drug self-medication and associated factors among pregnant women at Settat city, Morocco

“…The first source of information for conventional medicine self-medication was pharmacist. A similar source of information was reported in several studies conducted in Ethiopia (Sema et al, 2020;Tuha et al, 2020;Niriayo et al, 2021). The pharmacist is often in direct contact with the women when they purchase medicines and should take this opportunity to counsel them about medication use and safety (Michael et al, 2019).…”

“…In this study, pregnant women used drugs without any medical advice to treat mainly nausea and vomiting (70.3%), whereas headaches were the main ailment treated in North East Ethiopia (30%) ( Tuha et al, 2020 ), Jordan (85.5%) ( Alsous et al, 2021 ), Europe, North America and South America, and Australia ( Lupattelli et al, 2014 ). Pregnancy is a normal physiological state that leads to pathological changes that must be managed properly, and pregnant women should only take medication by prescription.…”

The use of medicinal plants by pregnant women in Africa: A systematic review

“…Similarly, smokers were more likely to use herbs during pregnancy [216]. Access to health facilities near location of residence, and herbal medicine use experience [151,217] were reported predictors of selfmedication. Similar to previous findings, religion was related to self-medication [218].…”