Self-Medication Practices in Surrounding Communities of Birat Medical College and Teaching Hospital of Eastern Nepal

Abstract

Background: Self-medication is the use of drugs to treat self-diagnosed disorders/symptoms, or the intermittent/continued use of a prescribed drug for chronic/recurrent disease/symptoms (WHO). It is the cause for antibiotic resistance, inappropriate treatment, financial burden and many deaths. WHO listed self-medication as one of the priority research area at the local context. The objective of the study was to find the prevalence and pattern of self-medication in surrounding communities of Birat Medical College and Teaching Hospital.
 Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted at the surrounding communities of Birat Medical College from 1st August 2018 to 15th December 2018. Multistage sampling was used to collect information from 348 household having family members aged 16 years and above. Ethical approval was taken from Institutional Review Committee of Birat Medical College. Pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire was used.
 Results: The mean age of the participants was 40.5±15.9 years. Prevalence of self-medication was 44.04%. Majority took self-medication for headache 43.6% followed by common cold 39.1% etc. Majority used allopathic drugs 82.7% followed by traditional healers 9.8%. Common medication were antipyretics 18.8%, antibiotics 16.5%, proton pump inhibitor 7.5%, antihistamines 6.8% etc. The reason behind self-medication were low cost 30.1%, time saving 24.1%, illness too trivial/mild for consultation 18.8%, quick relief 18.1%, high doctor fee 15 %, lack of awareness 13.5 %, familiar with treatment options 12.8%, long waiting line in hospital 12% etc. Out of them 8.3% noticed side effects of self-medication. Out of all 59.5% felt the need of awareness program on rational use of medicines. Age, sex, marital status, ethnicity, religion, education and occupation of participants, education and occupation of head of household, poverty status, family type, house residence type, type of house has no significant association with self-medication. Participants residing in alani/rent households were 1.93 times more likely to self-medicate than those residing in their own and participants having negative attitude were 1.90 times more likely to self-medicate than those who had positive attitude and both were statistically significant. 
 Conclusions: The burden of self-medication was present and allopathic drugs including antibiotics were common. Adverse drug reactions were reported but participants were unaware about the place to report. Participants had negative attitude towards self-medication which is harmful for their health. As pharmacy was the common source of self-medication, the prescription based medicine dispensary should be advocated.

Prevalence, knowledge and associated factors on self-medication practice among the community of Lalitpur Metropolitan City, Nepal: a cross-sectional study

“…The prevalence of SM in this study was 45.2%. The prevalence rate was in agreement with earlier studies done in Nepal for Pokhara (38.2%) and Morang (44.04%) (Paudel and Aryal, 2020;Parajuli et al, 2019). The studies done in India showed a prevalence rate of 53.57% (Rashid et al, 2020) and that for Yemen reported as 77.3% (Alshakka et al, 2019).…”

“…Categories of medicine use for SM were antipyretic followed by antimicrobials, NSAIDs, anti-cold preparation, drugs used in acidity, antihistaminic and oral contraception. A similar drug used pattern was mentioned in other studies (Bhattarai et al, 2014;Paudel and Aryal, 2020;Parajuli et al, 2019). A signi icant proportion of study participants used antimicrobials for SM, which is in agreement with the earlier study (Karmacharya et al, 2018).…”

“…In this study, most of the medicines used for SM were obtained from the pharmacy stores. Similar indings were reported in other studies carried out in Nepal, India, Ethiopia and Nigeria (Parajuli et al, 2019;Divya et al, 2016;Okolo and Nwankwo, 2019). This could be due to weak enforcement of regulation regarding drug handling and dispensing (Suleman et al, 2009) and lack of time and affordability to pay the healthcare expenses.…”

“…In developing countries, prevalence varies from 8.3% to 87% (Parulekar et al, 2016). In the case of Nepal, few studies conducted in different regions of the country reported a prevalence rate in the range of 38.2% to 94.9% (Paudel and Aryal, 2020;Parajuli et al, 2019;Baral et al, 2019). The willingness of SM practice has been attributed to the unaffordability of treatment, easy access to medicine, the time factor, unawareness, previous experience, etc.…”

Self-medication among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at Tertiary Care Center of Nepal

“…In Nepal, as in other countries, self-medication is a widespread practice, and the majority of medications consumer by the population is sold without medical prescriptions. Self-medication is a serious economic, social and health problem throughout the world, including Nepal [21][22][23].…”