Abstract
Self-medication is very common especially in developing countries and is documented to be associated with many health risks including antibiotic resistance. This study investigated the prevalence, determinants and knowledge of self-medication among residents of Siha District in Tanzania. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 300 residents in a rural District of Kilimanjaro region, North-eastern Tanzania from 1st to 28th April 2017. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect information regarding drugs used, knowledge, history and reasons for antibiotic self-medication. Log—binomial regression analysis was done using STATA 13 to examine factors associated with self-medication. A slightly majority of the respondents (58%) admitted to self-medication. Antibiotics most commonly utilized were amoxycillin (43%) and an antiprotozoal drug metronidazole (10%). The most common symptoms that led to self-medication were cough (51.17%), headache/ fever/ malaria (25.57%) and diarrhoea (21.59%). The most common reasons for self-medication were emergency illness (24.00%), health facility charges (20.33%), proximity of pharmacy to home (17.00%) and no reason (16.66%). Almost all reported that self-medication is not better than seeking medical consultation, 98% can result into harmful effects and 96% can result to drug resistance. The level of self-medication in this study is comparable with findings from other studies in developing countries. Pharmacies were commonly used as the first point of medical care. There is therefore a need for educative antibiotic legislative intervention to mitigate the adverse effects of antibiotic self-medication in Siha district in Tanzania.
Highlights
Self-medication is defined as the use of drugs to treat self-diagnosed disorders or symptoms or the intermittent or continued use of drugs for chronic or recurrent disease or symptoms without a prescription or guidance from a physician[1]
Materials and methods Study design, site and population. This was a community based cross sectional study which was conducted in SanyaJuu ward, Siha district in Kilimanjaro region, North-eastern Tanzania with a population of 116,313[26]
Antibiotic self-medication is mostly due to cough, fever and diarrhoea
Summary
Self-medication is defined as the use of drugs to treat self-diagnosed disorders or symptoms or the intermittent or continued use of drugs for chronic or recurrent disease or symptoms without a prescription or guidance from a physician[1]. Antibiotic self-medication causes excessive antibiotic exposure to humans[2,3] and is one of the documented factors responsible for development of the currently rapidly rising public health crisis, the resistance to antibiotics[2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. Among the measures taken by a person who feels unwell in a typical developing country is the use of traditional medication alongside modern medicine[21]. The latter involves buying medicines from a pharmacy as the first point of care without necessarily seeking medical consultation[18]. The majority of patients resort to self medication[23,24], a breeding ground for antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
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