A cross sectional study on the practise of self-medication among 2nd year medical and dental students

Most of the common health ailments are treated by general population themselves without medical supervision, which is termed as self-medication. There are potential risks of self-medications like adverse drug reaction, disease aggravation, drug dependence, drug resistance etc. The undergraduate medical and dental students have easy access to information from various sources to self-diagnose and self-medicate. So, we conducted the study to assess the practice of self-medication among 2nd year medical and dental students studying at Basaveshwara Medical College & S.J.M. Dental College, Chitradurga.

This was an observational, cross-sectional study based on a semi-structured, pre-validated questionnaire. Descriptive statistics was used for analysing the data. The result was analysed using the software Microsoft Excel sheet.

The study included 172 students (medical & dental), out of which 57.5% were females and 42.4% were males. 82.5% of participants had practised self-medication at some point in their life. 85% felt that there was no need to consult physician for simple ailments. The source of information for self-medication was pharmacist (61.6%), followed by google & internet (46.5%), senior (32.5%). Most common conditions for which self-medication was practiced included cold (93%), cough (85%), diarrhea (80%). Drugs commonly used for self-medication included Paracetamol (94%), Antacids (59%), Antibiotics (41%).

Our study revealed that there is a high prevalence of self-medication among medical and dental students. We as the healthcare professionals need to raise the awareness regarding the ill effects of self-medication among undergraduates and also stress on various measures to curb its growing trend.