A Study to Assess the Effect of Media in Promoting Self-Medication Use

Abstract

Self-medication is the use of drugs to treat self-diagnosed disorders, symptoms or the intermittent or continued use of prescribed drug for chronic or recurrent disease or symptoms. Todays, self-medication is one of the biggest socio-health and economic problems. This study aimed to find out the importance of media in promotion of self-medication. In this community based survey, a pretested questionnaire was circulated through social media to the general population and the data’s were collected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. After analyzing the responses we found that females were practicing self-medications more than males. Self-medication is influenced by many factors such as family, friends, availability of drugs, low perception of risk associated with use of drugs, knowledge of drugs, easy access to internet, and wider media coverage on related health issues. Approximately 190 of the participants admitted to the use of self-medication practice .Most of them were self-medicating for fever, cough and headache. More than half of the respondents had used paracetamol for self-medication. Media plays an important role in the reception of health risks; thus media competence is important in self-medication. Majority of participants use social media to obtain information on self-medication. Keywords: Self- medication, Media, Knowledge