Assessment of Self-Medication Practices and Its AssociatedFactors among Undergraduates of a Private University in Nigeria

Esan, Deborah Tolulope and Fasoro, Ayodeji Akinwande and Odesanya, Opeoluwa Esther and Esan, Theophilus Olaide and Ojo, Elizabeth Funmilayo and Faeji, Charles Oluwafemi Assessment of Self-Medication Practices and Its AssociatedFactors among Undergraduates of a Private University in Nigeria. HindawiJournal of Environmental and Public Health.

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Abstract

Self-medication is theuse of drugs to treat self-diagnosed disorders or symptoms or the intermittent orcontinued use of prescribed drug for chronic or recurrent disease or symptoms, and it is mostly common in developingcountries. (is study therefore assessed the practice of self-medication among undergraduate students of a private universityin Nigeria.Methods. (e study employed a descriptive cross-sectional design. A pretested questionnaire was self-administered to 384 undergraduate students of the university. Data were analysed and summarised using descriptiveand inferential statistics such as chi-squared and Fisher’s exact tests.Results. Overall, 297 (81.8%) undergraduate studentspracticed self-medication. About 71% of the students had used analgesic, antibiotics (10.5%), and antimalarial drugs (33%)without prescription within one month prior to the survey. (e most commonly used drug for self-medication wasparacetamol (75.1%). Furthermore, self-medication was found to be significantly associated with age (p�0.021), gender(p<0.001), college (p�0.025), and year of study (p�0.004). Some of the reasons why undergraduate students practicedself-medication were because of the unfriendly attitude of health care workers (27.7%), lack of time to go to school clinic(26.7%), school clinic is too far from hostel (15.3%), and drugs prescribed in the school clinic do not improve healthcondition (15.3%).Conclusion. Majority of the students attributed the practice of self-medication to unfriendly attitude ofhealth care workers in the university clinic.

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