A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SELF -MEDICATION PRACTICE AMONG MEDICAL & ENGINEERING STUDENTS IN A PRIVATE UNIVERSITY IN NORTH INDIA.
Rahul. Parakh*, Neha Sharma, Vineet Choudhary, Kriti Kothari Parakh, Richa Parakh, Pushpraj Gour
ABSTRACT
This study was undertaken to determine the knowledge, attitude &
practice of self medication among Medical & Engineering students of
all the years of NIMS Medical & Engineering College, Jaipur,
Rajasthan. This study was an anonymous, questionnaire-based,
descriptive study. A self-developed, pre-validated questionnaire
consisting of both open-ended and close-ended questions was filled by
all year Medical & Engineering students. Data was reviewed,
organized and summarized as counts and percentages and evaluated
using the Chi-square test and p-value of <0.05 was considered
tatistically significant. Out of total 316 students in medical and 346 in engineering, with an
age range from 17-27 years. Out of these, 73.4% medical & 75.7% engineering students had
taken self medication. The commonest indications for self-medication were headache & fever
followed by cough/common cold. 37.4% of the engineering students didn’t feel the need to
go to a doctor while minor illness (62.5%) among medical students and these were the most
frequent reasons for resorting to self-medication and the main source of self medication was
guardians (54.9%) while it was previous experience in 34.9% of medical students. Analgesics
were the commonest drugs used followed by antimicrobials with 70.2% (medical),
52%(engineering) of the students completed the recommended course of antimicrobials. The
practice of self-medication in our study was common and often inappropriate and this high prevalence is a cause of concern. Education and proper information about the drugs may go a
long way in promoting responsible self medication.
Keywords: Self-medication, medical students, engineering students, self-prescription.
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