Self-Medication Practices among a Sample of University Students Attending College of Science in Diyala Province

Abstract

Background: Self-medication is the use of drugs and painkillers by many
people with therapeutic or preventive intent without prior professional
advice or prescribed by a physician, including adults to treat their selfrecognized
diseases and symptoms.

Objectives: Determine the rate of self-medication practice among
university students and determine the most common area to be selfmedicated
and the most common drug group for self-medication.

Subjects and Methods: An analytical cross-sectional study of a random
sample of students attending two branches of college of science (biology
and chemistry) from the period of 10th December 2018 to 15th April
2019 through purposive sampling technique to collect responses from
students using structured questionnaire which was divided into many
sections including demographic details of research participants, history
of taking medication to treat a health problem without a prescription
at the last month, the reasons of self-medication practice. Sample size
was 220 university students. All data were entered on Microsoft Excel
2010, and managed and analyzed on SPSS version 19. The means and
standard deviations were calculated and both t-test and chi-square
tests were used to identify the associations between variables. The
confidence level was set at 95%, and the p value of less than 0.05 was
the limit value of significance.

Result: The rate of practicing self-medication was significantly higher
among studied university students and it accounted for (64.1%). And
it was significantly higher in females (62.4%) than males (37.6%). Most
of the self-medications (59.6%) were practiced for the pains originating
from head and neck. The vast majority of students (80.9%) significantly
were using analgesics and antipyretic, and most of them (71.6%) were
practicing it at any time during the year.

Conclusion: The study concluded that the rate of self-medication
among university students was at the high level, the self-medication
was practiced anytime during the year and the use of analgesics was
significantly dominant among other drug groups.

How to cite this article:
Noaman AA, Hussein MA, Mohammed SQ.
Self-Medication Practices among a Sample of
University Students Attending College of Science
in Diyala Province. J Adv Res Med Sci Tech 2019;
6(3&4): 13-18.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24321/2394.6539.201907