A comparative study of knowledge, attitude and practice of self-medication among medical and para medical students in a medical college, Mangaluru, Karnataka, India

Abstract

A comparative study of knowledge, attitude and practice of self-medication among medical and para medical students in a medical college, Mangaluru, Karnataka, India INTRODUCTIONSelf-medication, an important component of self-care, is the most common practice in developing countries. It is defined as the use of drugs to treat self-diagnosed illnesses or irregular use of a prescribed drug for a chronic disease. Traditionally, self-medication is described as the use of drugs, herbs or home remedies on advice of another individual or one"s own initiative without consulting a doctor.2 WHO defines self-medication as, "use of medication by a patient on his own initiative or on the advice of a pharmacist, or a lay person, instead of consulting a medical practitioner." 3,4 Various factors determining self-medication include: socioeconomic factors like growing empowerment, improved quality of education, health consciousness, advanced technology like internet and other communication systems, modern lifestyle, easy accessibility to the medicines, awareness about treatment of illnesses and rehabilitation, inappropriate nutrition. 5The practice of self-medication has brought the concept of over the counter drugs which are also called as non-ABSTRACT Background: Self-medication is defined as use of medicines without a doctor"s prescription and is frequently practiced among students in professional colleges. The purpose of this study was to compare the knowledge, attitude and practice of self-medication among second year medical and paramedical students in K. S Hegde Medical Academy, Mangaluru, Karnataka, India. Methods: A prospective, observational, questionnaire based study conducted where two groups of students, Medical and Paramedical were interviewed with a prevalidated questionnaire. Demographic data and questions regarding knowledge, attitude and practice of self-medication were included. Details and purpose of the study was explained to the students. The collected data was analysed statistically and the comparison between the two groups was done. Results: Total 247 students were involved in the study, group I consisting of 135 medical students and group II consisting of 112 paramedical students. All the students have practiced self-medication, however only 47.3% students agree with the practice. Accordingly, there are significant differences among the two groups in terms of reasons to choose self-medication and awareness about generic and brand names of drugs. Knowledge and practice about use of a particular drug for a particular condition was not balanced among the two groups. Conclusions: Self-medication is a common form of health care with potential benefits and hazards. Hence, it is very important to increase the awareness about the advantages and disadvantages of self-medication in medical college students to improve their knowledge, attitudes and practices of self-medication and eventually to increase the awareness in the society.

A Cross-Sectional Study to Assess the Pattern of Self-Medication Used for Diarrhea Among Medical Students in Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital of Central India

“…Diarrhea is a symptom of infection of the intestinal tract, which can be caused by a variety of bacterial, viral, and parasitic organisms [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. The infection usually spreads through contaminated food, drinking unfiltered and untreated water, or from person to person as a result of poor hygiene [1].…”

“…But still, it is found that many people take overthe-counter medication to relieve symptoms, and frequently, medical students self-administer medicine for the treatment of diarrhea without any consultation from the physician. Medical students in developing countries, such as India, often resort to self-administering medications without proper medical supervision, as indicated by a study in PMC [10,11].…”