SELF MEDICATION PATTERN AMONG MEDICAL UNDERGRADUATES IN SOUTH INDIA

Abstract

Self-medication can be defined as obtaining and consuming drugs without the advice of a physician either for diagnosis, prescription or surveillance of treatment the prevalence rates are higher in the developing countries going as high as 92% in the adolescents. Medical students differ from general population as there are expected to have more knowledge of the diseases and drugs. The present study was done to know the patterns of self medication practices in medical students. This was a questionnaire based study conducted in March 2014 at a medical college in South India. The selected respondents were those who have completed pharmacology exam and are in phase III and who had taken self medication in the last one year. The questionnaire included questions on involvement in self medication practices, frequency of self medication, sources of antibiotics used, reasons for self-prescribing of antibiotics, names of antibiotics used amongst other information. The present study showed a high prevalence of self medication in medical undergraduates. 87% of the students had taken self medication in the last one year. The most common symptoms for which self medication was taken were fever (91.9%), headache/body ache (83.6%), sore throat (77.9%) and cold/cough (68.5%). The most commonly used drug groups were analgesics (76.1%), anti-pyretics (57.8%), antibiotics (59.7%), antacids (41.5%) and anti-emetics (40.2%). The most common source of information was form prior illness, textbook and pharmacist. Most common reason was students did not want pay the doctors fess and lack of time. The practice of self medication is alarmingly higher among the medical students. Medical students tend to practice self-medication more often than the general public. Self-medication should be considered as a serious problem, especially among young population and educational intervention measures need to be implemented.

Key words:  Self-medication, rational use, medical students, over the counter drugs