Self-Medication During First Trimester among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Care Clinic at a District Hospital in Mwanza, North-western Tanzania

Background: Self-medication with conventional and/or herbal medicines is an important public health concern, especially to a delicate group of pregnant women due to its harmful and potential risks to mother and foetus. Awareness to its detrimental effects is influenced by social demographic factors and is highly related to its practice. This study determined the general knowledge, practice and common factors for self-medication among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at Sengerema designated district hospital. Method: A hospital based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted using a semi structured questionnaire in which a sample of 381 pregnant women on their first trimester of pregnancy was enrolled through convenient sampling. Data were analysed using STATA version 13 (TX: StataCorp LLC). Continuous variables were presented as frequencies, percentages and proportions while categorical variables were presented in charts, graphs and figures. Logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the factors associated with self medications. Results: The overall proportion of self-medication practice was found to be 289(75.9%) whereby 146(38.3%) and 143(37.5%) did self-medication with conventional and herbal medicines respectively. Prior experience with the medicine and better knowledge on disease and treatment were common reasons for self medication reported by 178(61.6%) and 152(52.6%) pregnant women respectively. On the other hand, Malaria, headache and morning sickness (nausea and vomiting) were the leading ailments treated by self-medication as reported by 93(32.2%), 72(24.9%) and 68(23.5%) proportions of women respectively. Marital status, occupation, Level of education, parity was significantly associated with self-medication with conventional medicines (p-value < 0.01) while residence, occupation and level of education were associated with self-medication with herbal medicines Journal of Pregnancy and Child Health Katabalo DM, et al. J Preg Child Health 5: 119. www.doi.org/10.29011/JPCH-119.100019 www.gavinpublishers.com Citation: Katabalo DM, Robert DN, Mwita S, Minja WV, Abbas S, et al. (2022) Self-Medication during First Trimester Among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Care Clinic at a District Hospital in Mwanza, North-western Tanzania. J Preg Child Health 5: 119. DOI: 10.29011/JPCH-119.100019 2 Volume 05; Issue 01 (p-value <0.01). Furthermore this study found that participants had no adequate knowledge on the medication they were using as well as harmful effects of self-medication during first trimester of pregnancy. Conclusion: The practice of self-medication during first trimester was highly common among women attending district hospital. Majority of them had no adequate knowledge on the detrimental effects of this practice posing a potential risk to them and to the foetus they are carrying.