Knowledge and Practice Regarding Over the Counter Medicines among Adults

Abstract

Self-medication can be defined as obtaining and consuming one (or more) drug(s) without the advice of a physician either for diagnosis, prescription or surveillance of treatment. The use of over the counter medicines are increasing day by day. Low cost and easy availability make these medicines to reach the hands of community quickly. The present study was intended to assess the knowledge and practices regarding over the counter medicines among adults and determine the association between knowledge and socio demographic variables. Across sectional survey was adopted and 100 adults were selected randomly from a rural ward in Thiruvananthapuram district. The result revealed that 39% of the adults had good knowledge, 43% had average knowledge and only 18% had poor knowledge. A statistically significant association was found between knowledge regarding Over the Counter (OTC) medicines with age (p=0.034) and monthly family income (p=0.002). The practice regarding OTC medicines revealed that majority (92%) of the adults were using OTC medications for various conditions like fever, pain, respiratory and gastric problems and 31% of the adults were taking more than one medicines without prescription and 85% of the subjects took medicines shown in advertisement without consulting a doctor and 90% of the subjects checked expiry date while purchasing medicines from the shop and 92% of the subjects discarded the medicines after the date of expiry. It can be concluded that knowledge regarding the use of OTC medicine was less among adults and public awareness through mass media can help to reduce the use of OTC medicines among people.