Volume 26, Issue 128, October 2022

Prevalence of self medication among Umm Al-Qura medical students

Mokhtar Shatla¹, Alaa Ahmed², Raghad Almasoudi², Omnia Kutbi², Nedaa Alsulaimani², Reem Brashi²

¹Department of Community Medicine and Pilgrimage Health Care, Faculty of medicine, Umm Alqura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia
²Medicine and surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

Background: Self medication is the use of pharmacological drugs without a prescription. The prevalence among medical students was found to be higher reaching 70.1%. Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of self-medication, probable reasons, symptoms, attitude, and source of advice among medical students at Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Methods: This is a cross sectional study that was carried out among medical students in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. All medical students were eligible to participate in the study using a snowball sampling technique until the sample size was satisfied. The data analysis was done using the statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS, version 26.0). Results: A total of (474) responses were analyzed with a mean age of 21.7 years ± 1.89 years and two thirds were females 301 (63.5%). The prevalence of self medication practice among students was 282 (59.5%). From the students’ perspective, the conditions that cause self medication practice include cold 232 (82.3%), sore throat 222 (78.7%), headache 215 (76.2%), and cough 176 (62.4%). One quarter (24.1%) of self medicated and 20 (4.2%) of non medicated respondents do encourage family and friends to self-medicate. The most common reason for self-medication reported was “no need to visit the doctor for a minor disease" followed by "knowledge from previous experience" (80.1% and 67.4%, respectively). Conclusion: The prevalence of self medication among medical students was found to be (63.5%). The majority of medical students do not advice family and friends to self medicate, while they encourage the behavior among those with higher levels of knowledge.

Keywords: Attitude - Makkah - Medical College - Prescription - Saudi Arabia

Medical Science, 2022, 26, ms439e2381

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.54905/disssi/v26i128/ms439e2381

Published: 31 October 2022