Abstract
Self-medication is very common in the general population, but its prevalence can differ according to the place of residence. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of self-medication in patients attending rural and remote family physicians, and to detect the important factors that are associated with it. A cross-sectional multicentre study was performed in 24 rural and remote family medicine practices in Slovenia was performed. The aim was to include 720 patients who visited their family physicians on a particular day. The authors used a validated questionnaire on self-medication, which consisted of questions about demographic characteristics (sex, age, education and working status), questions about health status, questions about self-medication practices, and questions about attitudes towards self-medication. The level of participants' trust in different sources of medical information was measured by a five-point Likert scale. The participants were asked to take into account the year 2013 when completing the questionnaire. Of 720 invited patients, 371 (51.5%) completed the questionnaire. There were 233 (62.8%) women in the sample. The mean age of the participants was 48.1 (±15.1) years. Self-medication was practised by 300 (80.9%) participants. In multivariate analysis, the variables independently associated with self-medication were information on self-medication obtained from pharmacists, and information on self-medication obtained from relatives. Additionally, some other variables had high odds ratios such as information on self-medication obtained from books, information on self-medication obtained from media, and reason for self-medication: burdening physicians. The practices of self-medication in rural Slovenia as reported by patients can be defined as moderately safe. People tend to seek more information on self-medication but the main sources for this are lay informants. Further studies are needed to explore the safety of such practices.
Highlights
Self-medication is very common in the general population, but its prevalence can differ according to the place of residence
The one most often used is a definition produced by the Section for Rural and Remote Family Physicians, which states that rural and remote family practices in Slovenia are those located in rural areas, outside the larger settlements; or in a very rural, agricultural, mountainous or sparsely populated area; or in remote areas (>20 km to the nearest hospital and/or emergency unit)[22]
The prevalence of self-medication found in other studies ranged from 20% to 80%15-19, which points to the fact that self-medication in Slovenian rural areas is very common even when compared to other countries
Summary
Self-medication is very common in the general population, but its prevalence can differ according to the place of residence. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of self-medication in patients attending rural and remote family physicians, and to detect the important factors that are associated with it. It is obvious that the majority of patients in family medicine use self-medication when experiencing a deterioration in their health. The general public’s view on the safety of self-medication is that drugs and remedies for self-medication are completely safe and can be used without any precautions[6]. This can result in inappropriate use, a manifestation of serious side effects, or dangerous interactions with conventional medicines[7,8]. Preparing the network of healthcare institutions is the responsibility of the state, comprising public primary healthcare centres, private family physicians and dentists, pharmacies, specialist services and public hospitals[9,10]
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