Abstract
ObjectiveSelf-medication practice is the selection and use of medicines by individuals or a member of the individual’s family without physician’s order to treat self-recognized or self-diagnosed conditions. It is highly prone to inappropriate use and wastage of resources, increase drug resistance pathogens and adverse reactions. Therefore, this study aimed to assess self-medication practices and associated factors among households at Gondar town, Northwest Ethiopia.ResultsThis community based cross-sectional study was conducted among households at Gondar town from March to June, 2018. The overall prevalence of self-medication practices among households at Gondar town were 50.2%. The odds of self-medication practices among unmarried participants (AOR = 3.12; 95% CI 2.35, 5.34), influenced by peer (AOR = 3.58; 95% CI 2.89, 7.28), poor perceived quality of health care services (AOR = 4.67; 95% CI 2.56, 7.96) and access to pharmacy (AOR = 2.32; 95% CI 1.65, 6.76) were higher compared with their counterparts. In the contrary, the lesser odd was observed among knowledgeable participants about medications (AOR = 0.27; 95% CI 0.16, 0.39) compared with non-knowledgeable. Therefore, improving perception of participants about quality of services, conducting awareness creation and managing negative effects of peer may reduce self-medication practices.
Highlights
Self-medication (SM) is the selection and use of medicines by individuals or a member of the individual’s family without physician’s order to treat self-recognized or self-diagnosed conditions [1]
This study was designed to assess the prevalence of Self-medication practices (SMP) and associated factors among households at Gondar town, Northwest Ethiopia
The finding was higher than studies done at University of Gondar (38.5%) [19], Mekelle (43.24%) [20], Meket district (35.9%) [26], Nekemte (36.7%) [27], Northwest Ethiopia (27.5%) [18], Puducherry, India (11.9%) [28], Saudi Arabia (35.4%) [29] and Haman dan province, Iran (35.4%) [30]
Summary
Socio‐demographic and economic characteristics A total of 632 participants were participated with a response rate of 98.4%. About 46% of respondents had access to pharmacy and more than half (56%) of participants were influenced by their peer/s (Table 2). About 45.4% participants were knowledgeable about medications, one-fifth (22.2%) of respondents had good perceived quality of governmental health care services and 42.4% perceived the costs of SMs was cheap (Additional file 1: Table S1). AOR with 95% CI and p-value less than 0.05 were used to determine variables associated with SMPs. The odds of SMPs was higher among unmarried (AOR = 3.12; 95% CI 2.35, 5.34), influenced by peer pressure (AOR = 3.58; 95% CI 2.89, 7.28), access to pharmacy (AOR = 2.32; 95% CI 1.65, 6.76) and poor perceived quality of governmental health care services (AOR = 4.67; 95% CI 2.56, 7.96) compared with that of their counterparts.
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