Self medication practice and associated factors among students of Asmara College of Health Sciences, Eritrea: a cross sectional study.

Autor: Araia ZZ; National TB and Leprosy Control Program, Communicable Disease Control Division., Ministry of Health, Asmara, Eritrea., Gebregziabher NK; School of Public Health, Asmara College of Health Sciences, Asmara, Eritrea., Mesfun AB; Communicable Diseases Control Division, Ministry of Health, Asmara, Eritrea.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice [J Pharm Policy Pract] 2019 Feb 19; Vol. 12, pp. 3. Date of Electronic Publication: 2019 Feb 19 (Print Publication: 2019).
DOI: 10.1186/s40545-019-0165-2
Abstrakt: Background: Self-medication is a common practice globally and the resulting irrational drug use is raising concerns. Up-to-date there is no systematic study conducted on self medication practice among students or the general community in Eritrea. The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of self-medication practice and its influencing factors among students of Asmara College of Health Science.
Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted from 21st May -15th June 2018. Data on self medication practice and its associated factors was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Data analysis was done using SPSS - 23 and explained with descriptive and inferential statistics.
Results: A total of 313 students responded to the questionnaire with a response rate of 93.6%. The overall prevalence of self-medication practice was 79.2%. Headache and fever were reported as the most common complaint related to self-medication practice. Among the reasons for self medication practice, prior experience was the most frequently reported. Analgesics, antipyretic and antibacterial were the leading class of medicine used in self-medication practice while adverse drug reactions were reported by 9.2% of respondents. In this study, sex, income, and school of study were found to be the independent predictors for self-medication practice.
Conclusion: National guideline on medicine access should be developed and strong measures should be implemented to halt the selling of medications without a proper prescription. In addition, students should be educated on the consequences of self-medication practices.
Competing Interests: The study was approved by the research clearance committee of the Research department of the Ministry of Health, Eritrea. The participants of the study were informed on the aim and objectives of the study and written informed consents were obtained from all the participants prior to data collection. Participants had the right to withdraw from participating in the study anytime during data collection and confidentiality of the data was assured by collecting information anonymously and not including personal identifiers.Not applicable.The authors declare that they have no competing interests.Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Databáze: MEDLINE
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