Prevalence and associated factors of self-medication among the college students in Tehran

Abstract

Background: Self-Medication is medicine consumption without prescription regardless of the cause, amount, and duration of use. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of self-medication and associated factors among a sample of students of Tehran in 2016. Methods: This is a cross sectional descriptive study was conducted with participation of 1269 students from three universities in Tehran, Iran. The samples were selected by cluster sampling method. Data collection tool in this study was a researcher made questionnaire including 62 questions. Validity of questionnaire was approved by CVI and CVR approaches. Data were analyzed with SPSS version 19 and using the central indices, t-test, chi-square, Pearson correlation coefficient and logistic regression. Results: mean age of students was 21.13±1.19 years. 80.7% of participants had a history of self-medication in the past six months. The highest rate of self-medication in both genders was belonged to headache 65.4%, colds 41.9%, cough and sore throat 27.2%,. Results showed that there was a statistically significant differences between self-medication with gender, university, and level of knowledge (p <0.05). Conclusion:Our study and other studies have shown high levels of Self-medication in this group of society. In our study self-medicate was associated with being male, lower awareness and non-medical student. It seems that it is necessary to implement strict rules and regulations to prevent access to drugs without prescription in order to reducing the self-medication. As well as conducting education about the negative effects of drugs for students and other community groups is essential.

Self-medication Among Students in Southern Iran: Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Attitudes

“…18 Another study conducted on students in Tehran found that self-medication prevalence in women, single individuals, and students in medical universities was significantly higher compared to other participants in the study. 21 In the present study, it was shown that the most common sources of over-the-counter medications were pharmacies and medications left over from the previous use at home, respectively. According to a study by Okumura in Vietnam in 2002, self-medication was more common when the medication was kept at home and there were no adequate rules and efficient policies for controlling self-medication.…”

“…24 Another study found that people used self-medication to treat headaches, menstrual problems, and colds. 21 Another study in Iran revealed that the most important group of diseases for which the participants used self-medication were respiratory diseases. 25 In another study, self-medication was used to treat headaches, allergies, and fever.…”

Risk-Taking Behaviors Among Students of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Iran

“…In another study, the prevalence of opium, methamphetamine, and tramadol use was 2.2%, 7.2%, and 14.8%, respectively. Other studies showed that gender is a predictor of substance use in medical students (30,31).…”

Panorama de la automedicación en estudiantes de educación superior: una mirada global

“…Por otro lado, realizando un análisis geoespacial, la automedicación en estudiantes universitarios es una práctica que afecta a poblaciones de diferentes localizaciones, demostrando que el panorama en Latinoamérica prevalece (12,19,20,21,24,25,29,37,41), a pesar de tener mayores conocimientos respecto a los riesgos, comparado con la población de Europa (33), África (5,23,26,32) y Asia (27,28,30,31,35) Desde otro punto de vista, la resistencia antimicrobiana se ha convertido en un tema ampliamente discutido por su implicación epidemiológica en países como Ecuador y Colombia, lo que indica la existencia de un alto consumo de antibióticos de forma indiscriminada y sin prescripción (49)(50)(51). Teniendo en cuenta lo anterior, se esperaba un elevado uso de dichos fármacos en las investigaciones que hicieron parte de la revisión sistemática; sin embargo, se identificó un comportamiento totalmente opuesto a lo sugerido en tales informes epidemiológicos, encontrándose que los analgésicos son el grupo farmacológico más empleado por los jó-Panorama de la automedicación en estudiantes de educación superior: una mirada global venes universitarios que practican la automedicación.…”

“…Las investigaciones seleccionadas se realizaron en países como: Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Nigeria, Egipto, Perú, Sri Lanka, Etiopia, Irak, Pakistán, Uganda y Turquía. La automedicación sobrepasó el 50% en todos los estudios, donde se obtuvieron porcentajes de práctica de automedicación que oscilan entre: 62,9% y 96,8% (5,11,(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33). Este comportamiento está influenciado por diversos aspectos, los cuales serán descritos a continuación…”