Online published on 28 May, 2014.
To determine the pattern of self medication among medical and dental students residing in hostels of the institutions and to evaluate the factors associated with it.
A questionnaire based cross-sectional study of medical and dental students residing in hostels of Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Medical Sciences and Research and Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Dental Sciences and Research, in Amritsar was conducted. The elicited data included demography, type of drug used, reasons for self medication and factors that influenced the choice of drug and source of information about drug.
A total of 407 students were included in the study. The prevalence of self medication was 83.2%. A large number of females were self medicating (96.5%) than males (62.0%). Medical students (88.4%) practiced self medication more frequently than dental students (77.9%).The majority of students self medicated because of the minor nature of illness (71.2%). Antipyretics were most commonly self medicated by the participants (73.9%), with textbooks/internet (50.2%) as the main source of information about drugs to practice self medication.
Self medication was a common practice amongst this studied group of future healthcare professionals. Easy availability and accessibility to health care facilities remains the cornerstone for reducing the practice of self medication.
Self-medication, medical students, dental students
