Abstract
Background Self-medication is the use of drugs to treat self-diagnosed disorders or symptoms or the intermittent or continued use of prescribed drug for chronic or recurrent disease or symptoms, and it is mostly common in developing countries. This study therefore assessed the practice of self-medication among undergraduate students of a private university in Nigeria. Methods The study employed a descriptive cross-sectional design. A pretested questionnaire was self-administered to 384 undergraduate students of the university. Data were analysed and summarised using descriptive and inferential statistics such as chi-squared and Fisher's exact tests. Results Overall, 297 (81.8%) undergraduate students practiced self-medication. About 71% of the students had used analgesic, antibiotics (10.5%), and antimalarial drugs (33%) without prescription within one month prior to the survey. The most commonly used drug for self-medication was paracetamol (75.1%). Furthermore, self-medication was found to be significantly associated with age (p=0.021), gender (p < 0.001), college (p=0.025), and year of study (p=0.004). Some of the reasons why undergraduate students practiced self-medication were because of the unfriendly attitude of health care workers (27.7%), lack of time to go to school clinic (26.7%), school clinic is too far from hostel (15.3%), and drugs prescribed in the school clinic do not improve health condition (15.3%). Conclusion Majority of the students attributed the practice of self-medication to unfriendly attitude of health care workers in the university clinic.
Highlights
Self-medication has been defined as the use of medication for self-treatment without consulting a physician either for diagnosis, prescription, or surveillance of treatment [1]
Self-medication has been reported to be on the rise globally [6]. e World Health Organization (WHO) emphasized that self-medication must be correctly taught and controlled in other to avoid drug-related issues such as antimicrobial resistance which is a current problem worldwide in developing countries where antibiotics are often available without a prescription [6]
Some of the reasons why undergraduate students practiced selfmedication were because of the unfriendly attitude of health care workers (27.7%), lack of time to go to school clinic (26.7%), school clinic is too far from hostel (15.3%), and drugs prescribed in the school clinic do not improve health condition (15.3%) (Figure 4)
Summary
Self-medication is the use of drugs to treat self-diagnosed disorders or symptoms or the intermittent or continued use of prescribed drug for chronic or recurrent disease or symptoms, and it is mostly common in developing countries. is study assessed the practice of self-medication among undergraduate students of a private university in Nigeria. Is study assessed the practice of self-medication among undergraduate students of a private university in Nigeria. E study employed a descriptive cross-sectional design. A pretested questionnaire was selfadministered to 384 undergraduate students of the university. Self-medication was found to be significantly associated with age (p 0.021), gender (p < 0.001), college (p 0.025), and year of study (p 0.004). Some of the reasons why undergraduate students practiced self-medication were because of the unfriendly attitude of health care workers (27.7%), lack of time to go to school clinic (26.7%), school clinic is too far from hostel (15.3%), and drugs prescribed in the school clinic do not improve health condition (15.3%). Majority of the students attributed the practice of self-medication to unfriendly attitude of health care workers in the university clinic
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