Adopting Self-Medication Prevention Behaviors According to Health Belief Model Constructs

Abstract

Background: Self-medication is one of the most important social, health, and economic challenges of many countries, especially Iran. Objectives: Therefore, this study aimed to predict the adoption of self-medication prevention behaviors according to Health Belief Model (HBM) constructs in the women attending health centers of Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan Province, Iran. Methods: The participants of the present investigation were 180 women residing in Bandar Abbas in 2016. Convenient sampling method was applied to select the participants. Data were collected through a questionnaire containing questions on demographic information, as well as the HBM constructs. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS version 19 using Pearson’s correlation coefficient and logistic regression. Results: The mean age of the participants was 30.8 ± 8.6 years. Among the HBM constructs, it was found that there was a positive relationship between the perceived susceptibility and perceived severity that the relationship was 0.231 at the significant 2-tailed level of 0.01. While, there was a negative correlation between the perceived barriers and perceived benefits that the relationship was -0.231 at the significant 2-tailed level of 0.01. The results of multiple regression analysis represented that considering HBM constructs, only R2 = 0.048 of the self-medication preventive behaviors could be explained (R2 = 0.048, P = 0.042). Conclusions: Regarding the results of this study, only four percent of Health Belief Model Constructs could predict the preventive behavior in self-medication. Based on the weak prediction of model constructs and the findings of this study, there is a need to focus on the benefits, perceived susceptibility, and perceived barriers in designing health promotion programs.