A systematic review of the literature on survey questionnaires to assess self-medication practices

Abstract

Self-medication is of great public health importance as it often bypasses regulatory mechanisms to assure quality of health care. Nevertheless there are no established standards on how to assess self-medication. We therefore intended to systematically retrieve questionnaires and survey tools used to capture self-medication, with the aim to identify the scope of information investigated in this context and commonalities between the tools. We conducted a systematic review of the literature on questionnaires used for self-medication assessment by searching PubMed and Web of Science databases using the combinations of following keywords; self-medication, self-prescription, non-prescription, questionnaire. Truncation was used to ensure retrieval of all possible variations of search terms. The search was limited to articles published between 1st January 2000 and 31st December 2015, human studies and English language. Duplicate and irrelevant studies were excluded from the final review. A total of 158 studies were included in the review. Studies were from diverse geographical locations, most of the studies were from Nigeria 16 (10.1%) followed by India 10 (6.3%) and Iran 8 (5%). Forty-three studies (27.2%) focused on antibiotic self-medication. Majority of the studies (106; 67%) were done with adult populations. The components addressed by the questionnaires covered: reasons for self-medications in 147 (93%) studies, purchasing source in 136 (86%) studies, medical conditions to be treated in 153 (96.8%) studies, adverse events in 67 (42.4%) studies, use of prescribing information in 24 (15.1%) studies and antibiotic resistance awareness in 20 (46.5%) antibiotic studies. For 74 (46.8%) studies, survey questionnaires were self-administered and most studies (57; 36%) were done at homes of respondents. Thirty-seven (23.4%) studies did not report any recall period for self-medication practices. Study response rates varied from 17.9% to 100%, and while validity of the study questionnaire was reported for 100 (63.3%) studies, 15 (9.5%) studies reported reliability test of the study questionnaire. There is a large variety of questionnaires being used for investigating self-medication practices making comparability and meta-analyses very difficult. It is desirable to have a basic set of standardized survey questions on this topic to make available for future research groups in this field.

Self medication practices of over the counter analgesic drugs among medical students in a tertiary care hospital in Jharkhand, India

“…Self medication is a very common practice today. 16 It we use any medicine which is already available in our home or if we are using medicines which has been prescribed for any other person then also it is self medication. 17 In present study 88.15% students have used analgesics as self medication out of which 85.81% were males and 90.41% were females (p >0.05).…”

Prevalence of self medication practice among students of a medical college

“…1 Previous studies also have reported that the prevalence of self medication among medical student of Bangladesh was high as 65.2% as well as, 88.18% in Karnataka, India, 76% in Karachi.3 Main sources of self medication are relatives, friends, pharmacists who not only provide medicines but also the information about usage of drug. 5 Media exposure and pharmaceuticals advertisement pose a larger threat in providing self medication practice. 6 Several factors like costly consultation, lack of access to health care, time constraint, lack of trust on physician, inadequate implementation of drug laws have been shown to indulge this practices.…”

“…6 Several factors like costly consultation, lack of access to health care, time constraint, lack of trust on physician, inadequate implementation of drug laws have been shown to indulge this practices. 5,7 Benefits of self medication is precised as convenient, cost effective, product safety when used as recommended in the instructions and self reliant to the recipient in preventing or relieving 1 minor symptoms or condition 7 , 8 on the other hand several studies have indicated that inappropriate self medication results in adverse drug reactions, misdiagnosis of disease, drug interactions, antibiotic resistance, treatment failure, unintentional and intentional poisonings, drug abuse and misuse, increased morbidity, drug market disruption, financial loss and wastage of healthcare resources. 3-5.7,9 Because of its favourable and unfavourable consequences, self medication has an substantial impact in healthcare sector.…”

A study to determine the knowledge of pharmacovigilance among pharmacy students from Mumbai university

“…Prevalence of self-medication in India varies widely from 27.6% to 81.5%. 11 Pharmacists can play a pivotal role in both ADE reporting and PV activities. 12 Pharmacists are more likely to detect adverse drug events (ADEs) than are other healthcare professionals, either in the hospital or community setting.…”