Self-Medication Practice and Associated Factors Among Health Professionals at the University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital: A Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND: Self-medication is the use of medication to treat self-diagnosed disorders or symptoms. In the current time, there has been an increasing tendency in self-medication in pharmacies and retail outlets in our country Ethiopia and alarmingly high in healthcare professionals. In spite of the adverse impacts, there were scarcity of data on self-medication practice among health professionals in Ethiopia. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the practice of self-medication and its determinant factors among health professionals at the University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia. METHODS: A Cross-sectional study design was employed using a simple random sampling technique to recruit the study participants. We used self-administered questionnaires to collect the data. Epi Info 7 and SPSS 20 were used for data entry and statistical analysis, respectively. Frequencies and mean with standard deviation were computed. Measure of association between self-medication and independent factors was determined using logistic regression. Variables with a p<0.05 were declared as determinant factors of self-medication practice. RESULTS: Four hundred and twelve health professionals were involved in the study with a mean age of 29.9 years (±5.43, range=20–60). In this study, self-medication practice was 54.6% (95% CI: 49.8–59.4). Health professionals who had worked less than 3 years after last graduation (AOR=1.67, 95% CI (1.02, 2.76)), those with 44–55 working hours per week (AOR=2.44, 95% CI: 1.07,5.57), and who knew over-the-counter classification of drugs (AOR=1.75, 95% CI: 1.03,2.99) had significantly higher self-medication practice. CONCLUSION: Self-medication practice was remarkably high in the current study which is a major public health problem. The findings suggest a cooperative implementation of pharmaceutical regulations particularly focusing on those health professionals with high working hours per week.