Practices of self medication among university students of Multan, Pakistan
The objective of present study is to determine the practices of self-medication among university students of Multan, Pakistan. A cross sectional study was carried out at Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan and Nishtar Medical University Multan, Pakistan. The data was collected from 300 medical a...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/71856/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/71856/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/71856/1/71856_Practices%20of%20self%20medication.pdf |
| Summary: | The objective of present study is to determine the practices of self-medication among university
students of Multan, Pakistan. A cross sectional study was carried out at Bahauddin Zakariya
University Multan and Nishtar Medical University Multan, Pakistan. The data was collected
from 300 medical and 300 non medical students with the help of convenient sampling. Close
ended questionnaire were developed for the data collection. Of the 600 respondents 300 were
medical while 300 were non medical students. There were 169(28.2%) male and 431(71.8%)
were females. Majority of the respondents were Muslims 591(98.5%) while 9(1.5%) were non
Muslims. The most frequent signs and symptoms that led students to involve in self medication
were headache 279(46.5%), flu 102(17.0%), fever 101(16.8%), pain elsewhere 39(6.5%), anti
allergies 28(4.7%), diarrhea 25(4.2%), 26(4.3%) for other reasons. Majority of the medical and
non medical university students used commonly drugs, pain killer 411(68.5%), antibiotics
67(11.2%), Vitamins 51(8.5%), anti allergies 30(5.0%), sleeping pills 17(2.8%) herbal/ tonics
7(1.2%), and any other 5(.8%). Majority of the respondents reported that they practices self
medication is due to the easy availability of common drugs 370(61.7%) while 104(17.3%)
discussed that due to habit they used self medication, 85(14.2%) thought that there is no side
effect. In our study there was no significant difference in practicing self medication amongst the
medical and non medical students. A holistic approach should be implemented to prevent this
important problem especially education and awareness towards the implication of self
medication. |
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