Self-medication of Dental Pain amongst Medical Students in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: Determinants, Attitude and Clinical Aspects

Healthcare students are becoming increasingly concerned about self-medication (SM), which can have major health repercussions. It affects how future physicians make professional decisions about medications. Such a mindset has an indirect impact on providing their patients with appropriate counselling. The study was planned to investigate the attitude, determinants and different clinical aspects associated with SM of dental pain amongst medical students in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The present descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted exclusively on the 400 medical students from the 1st year and interns pursuing bachelor’s degrees from various medical colleges in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. A convenient non-probability sampling technique was employed, and a pre-tested/pre-validated questionnaire was loaded on Google Forms and sent to the medical students of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and nursing programmes. Qualitative characteristics were assessed using the Chi-square test. The significance level (P value) chosen for the various comparisons was P < 0.05. The results of this study show that 65.5% of students self-medicate. It was significantly more common in women (74.9%), pharmacists (76.9%) and dental students (72.7%). Students who self-medicated less often were in the 1st and 2nd years (49.2% and 57.1%). Toothache was the most common cause for which they self-medicated (79.8%). The results of the present study have shed light on the fact that SM was high amongst medical students in Jeddah. The potential problems associated with self-medication should be highlighted to students to reduce the risk of inappropriate SM, which can seriously harm both students and others to whom they prescribe medication.