Prevalence of self-medication practices among the residents of urban slums located near govt. medical college, Jabalpur

Abstract

Background: Self-medication is defined as medication taken on the patient’s own initiative or on the advice of pharmacist or any other lay person. Self-medication can be described as a double edged sword for its users, because it has both beneficial and harmful effects. According to recent community based study in 2016 prevalence of self-medication in developing countries varies from 12% to as high as 73% in different communities. The objectives of the study were to assess the prevalence of self-medication among the residents of urban slums located near Govt. medical college, Jabalpur and to identify the factors associated with the practice of self-medication.Methods: It was a descriptive cross sectional study conducted in 412 families residing in slum areas around the medical college for duration of 2 months [1st July to 31st august 2017]. One participant from each family was interviewed. Data on socio demographic details (age, gender, education, occupation, and income), practice of self-medication, and reasons for use of self-medication were collected.Results: Among the total 412 participants, 176 (42.7%) practiced self-medication out of which 43.6% were Females. Highest prevalence of 58.1% amongst 18-40 years of age group, 69.3% was literates. Major reason for self-medication being disease is simple (56.5%). Majority took self-medication occasionally (72.5%) and most common source were Pharmacists (87.42%) through OTC (81.14%). Most widely used drugs were Analgesics (66.28%) and main indications were headache, body ache and other pains (25.2%). Associations were compared with chi-square test Socio economic status of participants and Vicinity distance from hospital revealed statistically significant result. Socio-economically upper class (p꞊0.018) and participants living more than 500 m away from hospital (p=0.010) tends to take more self medication.Conclusions: There was a heterogeneous spread in the practices. Easy availability of over the counter (OTC) drugs is a major factor responsible for irrational drug use. Community awareness programme, educational interventions should be conducted about side effects of self-medication.

Prevalence and predictors of self-medication for COVID-19 among slum dwellers in Jinja City, Uganda

“…This disparity could be explained by the fact that during the COVID-19 lockdown, the public was not moving freely, making it difficult for them to obtain drugs. The prevalence of self-medication in our study, however, was way higher than that reported among residents of urban slums [32]. This discrepancy can be explained by the fact that both of these studies were conducted way before the COVID-19 pandemic which started almost three years later.…”

“…In addition, studies conducted in Uganda, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Belgrade and Cameroon have reported that as one gets older, they acquire accumulated knowledge due to disease experience [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]. Contrary studies have been done in Jabalpur [32] and Syrian [41], where individuals aged 18 to 40 years were more likely to self-medicate. This age difference could be due to the population dynamics of the respondents.…”

Self-Medication Practice for Dental Pain: Expectations and Rationality

“…Fortunately, the prevalence in our study was not that alarming. In concordance with studies done by Jain et. al.…”

An exploratory study on prevalence of self-medication among the students of selected university, Rajpura, Punjab

“…12 Similarly, in another study, major factors leading to selfmedication were simple disease (56.50%), easy availability of drugs (50.80%), self-decision (31.40%), and timesaving (28.00%). 13 In this present study, it was concluded that there was no association between socio-demographic variables and the prevalence of self-medication except association seen with gender. On the contrary, a study which was conducted among 2000 university students of Southwestern Nigeria revealed that there was a significant association between the prevalence of self-medication and age, gender, and educational status.…”