Messaline Sunitha1, Shobha P2
BACKGROUND & RATIONALE
Self-medication is defined as the selection and use of medicines by individuals to treat self-recognised illness or symptoms. Practice of self-medication, especially by medical students can cause wastage of resources, bacterial resistance, drug addiction and serious adverse drug reactions. The objective of our study is to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practice of self-medication among medical college students in Kerala.
METHODS AND MATERIAL
MBBS students of a private medical college were included in the study. The students filled a structured pretested questionnaire and descriptive statistics was applied to the data with SPSS version 20.
RESULTS
Out of 300, 264 (88%) students had taken self-medication over the past 1 year. Past exposure with the same drug was the significant source of information for the drugs (49.2%) and the drugs frequently self-medicated were analgesics 34.4% (91) and antipyretics 30.3% (80). More than half of the students, 66% (198) students had expressed positive and 34% (102) students had expressed negative attitude towards self-medication. Around 66% students declared that they were not aware of the dose, frequency and adverse effects of the drugs.
CONCLUSION
The pattern of self-medication practice from our study was similar to other studies done in various parts of India. Similar studies in future will provide adequate information to regulatory authorities to implement these results on strict drug dispensing and drug advertising policies.
