SELF MEDICATION PRACTICES AMONG UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF SELECTED COLLEGES

Abstract

Background: Self-medication is the use of drugs to treat self-diagnosed disorders or symptoms 
or the intermittent or continued use of prescribed drug for chronic or recurrent disease or 
symptoms, and it is mostly common in developing countries.  
Objective: To assess the self medication practices among undergraduate students. 
Methodology: An Exploratory research design was used. A total of 400 undergraduate students 
were taken from the selected colleges by using convenient sampling technique. Knowledge 
Questionnaire and Checklist were used to assess the practices of self medication.  
Results: It was found that 92.2% undergraduate students were practicing  self medication from 
last 6 months, 36.8% undergraduate students take self medication for headache, 85% 
undergraduate students prefer allopathic medicine system, 74.5% undergraduate students use 
tablets for self medication, 82.5% undergraduate students check the expiry date of the drug 
before taking medicine, 43.2% undergraduate students take self medicine only once, 73.8% 
undergraduate student’s symptoms relieved immediately, 58.5% undergraduate students had no 
adverse drug reactions, 65.8% undergraduate students does not feel need to consult doctor for 
minor problems(major contributing factor). The relationship of self medication practices with 
gender, mother’s education and source of information were found to be statistically significant at 
0.05 level of significance.