Self-medication in nursing students

Abstract

Objective: to determine the prevalence and factors associated with the practice of self-medication among undergraduate nursing students at a private institution in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Methodology: descriptive, quantitative, and cross-sectional study. The sample consisted of 99 nursing students who were administered a self-medication instrument. Results: a total of 99 students aged between 25 and 35 years were interviewed. Most of them were female (82,83 %) and in their first year of study (29,29 %). The prevalence of self-medication was 100 %. Television and social networks were the main sources of information about medicines; the symptoms that motivated self-medication were pain and cold, and consequently the most used medicines were analgesics (82,83 %) and anti-influenza medicines (78,79 %). When asked where they obtained the medicines, 79,80 % obtained them from pharmacies and 48,48 % from relatives. Conclusions: the prevalence of self-medication was high and was mainly related to the availability of economic resources to access medicines and the possibility of buying them at the pharmacy without a prescription. It is necessary to implement activities to guarantee the responsible use of medicines among nursing students.