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Prevalence, Pattern, and Reasons for Self-Medication: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study From Central India

Introduction Self-medication is an important public health problem, with varied prevalence across the world. The high prevalence of self-medication in India is one of the important factors contributing to the development of antimicrobial resistance. Self-medication without medical guidance can lead...

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Autores principales: Rathod, Pragati, Sharma, Sarita, Ukey, Ujwala, Sonpimpale, Bhagyashri, Ughade, Suresh, Narlawar, Uday, Gaikwad, Sanju, Nair, Parvati, Masram, Pushkar, Pandey, Snigdha
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cureus 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9936784/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36819304
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.33917
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author Rathod, Pragati
Sharma, Sarita
Ukey, Ujwala
Sonpimpale, Bhagyashri
Ughade, Suresh
Narlawar, Uday
Gaikwad, Sanju
Nair, Parvati
Masram, Pushkar
Pandey, Snigdha
author_facet Rathod, Pragati
Sharma, Sarita
Ukey, Ujwala
Sonpimpale, Bhagyashri
Ughade, Suresh
Narlawar, Uday
Gaikwad, Sanju
Nair, Parvati
Masram, Pushkar
Pandey, Snigdha
author_sort Rathod, Pragati
collection PubMed
description Introduction Self-medication is an important public health problem, with varied prevalence across the world. The high prevalence of self-medication in India is one of the important factors contributing to the development of antimicrobial resistance. Self-medication without medical guidance can lead to inappropriate, incorrect, or undue therapy, missed diagnosis, delays in appropriate treatment, pathogen resistance, and increased morbidity. The growing trend of self-medication can be attributed to various factors like the urge for self-care, sympathy toward sick family members, inaccessible health services and nonavailability of drugs, time and financial constraints, ignorance, misbeliefs, extensive advertisement and availability of drugs in places other than drug shops. Methodology The present community-based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in an urban field practice area of a tertiary health care center (UHTC) in Central India. Individuals above 18 years of age and present at home at the time of the house-to-house survey comprised the study participants. A total of 400 participants were enrolled in the study. Data were collected using a predesigned and pretested questionnaire by the face-to-face interview technique. Results The prevalence of self-medication in the area was 60 % (240). The most widely used drugs for self-medication were analgesics (159; 66.25%) and antipyretics (142; 59.16%). Common ailments for which self-medication was used frequently were fever, body aches, common cold, and cough. It was observed that female participants were twice more likely to self-medicate as compared to male participants (Odds Ratio (OR): 2.04; Prevalence (p) = 0.014, Confidence Interval (CI) 95% = 1.15-3.62). Additionally, those having education above the high school level had more chances of self-medicating than those educated less than high school (OR: 1.25; p≤0.014, CI 95%=1.05-1.50). The commonest reasons for resorting to self-medication as per the findings of the present study are that it saves time and the condition was not serious enough to warrant a physician’s consultation.
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spelling pubmed-99367842023-02-18 Prevalence, Pattern, and Reasons for Self-Medication: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study From Central India Rathod, Pragati Sharma, Sarita Ukey, Ujwala Sonpimpale, Bhagyashri Ughade, Suresh Narlawar, Uday Gaikwad, Sanju Nair, Parvati Masram, Pushkar Pandey, Snigdha Cureus Family/General Practice Introduction Self-medication is an important public health problem, with varied prevalence across the world. The high prevalence of self-medication in India is one of the important factors contributing to the development of antimicrobial resistance. Self-medication without medical guidance can lead to inappropriate, incorrect, or undue therapy, missed diagnosis, delays in appropriate treatment, pathogen resistance, and increased morbidity. The growing trend of self-medication can be attributed to various factors like the urge for self-care, sympathy toward sick family members, inaccessible health services and nonavailability of drugs, time and financial constraints, ignorance, misbeliefs, extensive advertisement and availability of drugs in places other than drug shops. Methodology The present community-based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in an urban field practice area of a tertiary health care center (UHTC) in Central India. Individuals above 18 years of age and present at home at the time of the house-to-house survey comprised the study participants. A total of 400 participants were enrolled in the study. Data were collected using a predesigned and pretested questionnaire by the face-to-face interview technique. Results The prevalence of self-medication in the area was 60 % (240). The most widely used drugs for self-medication were analgesics (159; 66.25%) and antipyretics (142; 59.16%). Common ailments for which self-medication was used frequently were fever, body aches, common cold, and cough. It was observed that female participants were twice more likely to self-medicate as compared to male participants (Odds Ratio (OR): 2.04; Prevalence (p) = 0.014, Confidence Interval (CI) 95% = 1.15-3.62). Additionally, those having education above the high school level had more chances of self-medicating than those educated less than high school (OR: 1.25; p≤0.014, CI 95%=1.05-1.50). The commonest reasons for resorting to self-medication as per the findings of the present study are that it saves time and the condition was not serious enough to warrant a physician’s consultation. Cureus 2023-01-18 /pmc/articles/PMC9936784/ /pubmed/36819304 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.33917 Text en Copyright © 2023, Rathod et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Family/General Practice
Rathod, Pragati
Sharma, Sarita
Ukey, Ujwala
Sonpimpale, Bhagyashri
Ughade, Suresh
Narlawar, Uday
Gaikwad, Sanju
Nair, Parvati
Masram, Pushkar
Pandey, Snigdha
Prevalence, Pattern, and Reasons for Self-Medication: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study From Central India
title Prevalence, Pattern, and Reasons for Self-Medication: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study From Central India
title_full Prevalence, Pattern, and Reasons for Self-Medication: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study From Central India
title_fullStr Prevalence, Pattern, and Reasons for Self-Medication: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study From Central India
title_full_unstemmed Prevalence, Pattern, and Reasons for Self-Medication: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study From Central India
title_short Prevalence, Pattern, and Reasons for Self-Medication: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study From Central India
title_sort prevalence, pattern, and reasons for self-medication: a community-based cross-sectional study from central india
topic Family/General Practice
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9936784/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36819304
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.33917
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