Abstract

PREVALENCE AND SELF-MEDICATION PRACTICES AMONG THE POPULATION OF RAICHUR DISTRICT OF KARNATAKA

Jonathan Jose*, Sarfaraz MD and Shiv RS Panjiyar

ABSTRACT

Self-medication is a general practice globally. People self-medicate by buying medicines at a medical shop either by asking its properties/symptoms such as pain killers/gastric drugs or by the advice of a qualified pharmacist/ unqualified person in the medical store. The objective of the study was to assess the prevalence, pattern, and reasons for self-medication practices among population of Raichur district of Karnataka and to assess the attitude of respondents who had experienced self-medication. It was a questionnaire-based study, the questionnaire comprised questions regarding sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge, and attitude regarding OTC drugs, pattern of use of OTC drugs, factors affecting their use, commonly used drugs for self-medication, knowledge of the people regarding dose, duration, adverse effects, interactions of the drugs in use and source of information about the drug. Of the 216 respondents, 114 were found to be male and 94 were found to be female. The most common conditions/symptoms for which self-medication was done was for aches and pain (37.3%), followed by fever and gastric symptoms (23.6%), infections (9.2%), skin rash & allergy (7.4%), weakness (4.1%), difficulty breathing (2.3%) and insomnia (1.8%). This study concluded that there is high prevalence of self-medication among age group 18-40 yearrs of age. Although most of the drugs self-medicated were in the list of over-the-counter drugs, but many used antimicrobial drugs, and some even got opioid analgesics as pain killers.

Keywords: Self-Medication, OTC drugs, Prevalence, Adverse effects.