Abstract
This paper provides an anthropological assessment on self-medication practices. It seeks to investigate representations associated with self-medication and identify contextual elements which can reinforce or inhibit such practice by employing medicine-users' perspective on the non-compliance of prescription. Primarily based on the informal conversations/interviews with 10 informants, it analyzes how socio-cultural and different forces shape our understanding of and actions towards health, illness and healing and the ways of wondering and behaving related to self-medication. It explores a few determinants for self-medication including the influence of medicine-sellers, circle of family members and friends, the role of pharmaceutical marketing, notion of the health problem as transitory and a minor issue, familiarity with and easy access to certain medicines, and difficulties in access to health care professionals. It concludes that the ubiquity of cultural practice of self-medication is the function of the concept of people on inaccessibility, time consumption, unaffordability and dissatisfaction in the delivery of formal health care services.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.