Self-medication prevalence and related factors among medical university students, 2015

Abstract

Background: Self-medication is one of the main health problems. Given the high prevalence of self-medicationin society and between students, the aim of this study was to assess the rate of self-medication among Ardabil medical students.Methods: This cross–sectional study has been done on 150 students which selected randomly from Ardabil Medical University Science students. Data collected by a questionnaire and then analyzed by statistical method in SPSS.19.Results: The rate of self-medication among students was 65%. Most of usage drug was sedatives with 77.1%. 7.2% of students were prepared drugs from places other than pharmacies and most of self-medication was the existence of drug free market with 71%.Conclusions: Given the high prevalence of self-medication among students it is necessary to promote a culture of drug use among students, education in the field of self-medication and its side effects are given to students.

Prevalence and predictors of self-medication among University students in Ethiopia: A systematic review and Meta-analysis

“…However, our study revealed lower self-medication prevalence than some studies [22,35,36,37,12,13,17,18,15,38,39,40,41,36,42].…”

“…While other study from north India among nursing students was 88.24% [17], Brazil among nursing students 76.0% (18), and Kuwait among medical students was 97.8% [19]. On other systemic review from Ethiopia indicates self-medication varied from 12.8% to 77.1% [20],Iran university was 65% [15], Eastern Saudi Arabia indicates 90.5% [21], medical students in Coastal South India 78.6% [22], 86%…”

“…Self-medication practice of university students is related with some factors like being female, being the undergraduate and increased year of study to be practiced in high prevalence [12,13,5,14,2,15,16].…”

“…So many factors were directly related to self-medication among university students. Of which illness like headache (90.1%), 84.7% for menstruation discomfort 60.3% constipation, fever, cough, abdominal discomfort [19,24,25,2,15,9,26].Therefore this study is aimed at identifying factors contributing to self-medication and its prevalence in population groups that are assumed to have the most frequency of self-medication. The study might also assume to have good input for policy makers and researchers as baseline data for further study.…”

“…[45], from Brazil 11.1%-55.6% [18], Iran 34.6% [15], India 39.3% [22], which is very dangerous in modern health care because of antimicrobial resistance.…”