Knowledge, attitude and practice of self medication in Southwest Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Self-medication is the selection and use of medicines by individuals to treat selfrecognised illnesses or symptoms and an important initial response to illnesses if successfully used. The objective of this study was to assess knowledge, attitude and practice of self medication among Medical Sciences Faculty students of Jimma University. METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted in Medical sciences Faculty students in 2009.The faculty and the three schools were selected by lottery method .Then, within the faculty respective number of students for each School was determined by proportion from the total sample size. Data was collected randomly from each School using self administered questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS version 16.0 RESULTS: From a total of 403 (100%) participants,95 (45.89%) students practiced self medication in the past two months for commonly perceived illnesses such as headache 35 (36.85%), abdominal pain 29 (30.55%) and cough 33 (23.16%) using mainly analgesics 40(49.38%) and antibiotics 29 (35.80%) mostly from drug retail outlets 88(92.63). Fifty seven (60.00%) respondents can recall the dose, frequency and duration of the medicine while 38 (40%) did not know. Sixty five (68.42%) students agreed to practice self medication irrespective of the seriousness of illnesses. CONCLUSION: Self mediation was widely practiced for minor symptoms with both OTC and prescription only drugs. Most of respondents use self medication irrespective of the seriousness of the illnesses. Lack of proper information and the ease of access from drug outlets were the most important problems. INTRODUCTION: Self-medication is the selection and use of medicines by individuals to treat selfrecognised illnesses or symptoms. Self medication is the treatment of common health problems with medicines especially designed and labeled for use with out medical supervision and unproved as safe and effective for such use . Self medication is becoming an important component of health care in both developed and developing countries. Unlike in the developed countries, illegal providers of drugs (seller in market, non licensed provider of injection etc) are common in developing counties along with some practitioners for further source of irrational and potentially dangerous drug use . In Ethiopia, the magnitude of self medication is not yet well known. Study conducted in Addis Ababa showed that the magnitude of self care was as high as 50%, and low severity of the disease and poverty were the major reasons for self care .