Assessment of Prevalence, Knowledge and Practice of Over-the-Counter Medications Use among General Population

Abstract

The rate of use of over the counter (OTC) drugs is radically expanding step by step. Over the counter medications are drugs sold easily to consumer without a physician’s instruction. A cross sectional descriptive design was adopted for this study to assess the prevalence, knowledge and practice of over-the-counter medications use among general population. A sum of 440 people was selected utilizing probability cluster sampling by evaluating individuals who met the inclusion criteria. The participants were collected data on knowledge and practice of over-the-counter medications use with a self-structured questionnaire through structured interview method. An aggregate of 500 people were met with respect to their utilization of OTC medications, among which 440 were selected. The commonness of self-medicine with OTC medications in our examination was seen as 88%. Among which 97% of them had adequate knowledge on OTC meds and just 3% had inadequate knowledge. With respect to level of Practice, it was discovered that 67.7% of them had low practice, 31.1% had moderate practice and 1.13% had high practice. There was a feeble negative connection existed among knowledge and practice (r=-0.244) which was significant at p<.001. There was likewise a measurably statistically significant affiliation noted between the degree of knowledge with medicinal professionals in their family at p<0.01 and source of awareness at p<0. 001. Correspondingly, an affiliation was found between the degree of practice with educational qualification at p < 0.01, OTC medicine utilization in years at p < 0.01and source of awareness at p <05.