Self-medication among health workers in a tertiary institution in South-West Nigeria.
Pan Afr Med J
; 24: 312, 2016.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28154667
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION:
Inappropriate self-medication results in wastage of resources, resistance to pathogen and generally entails serious health hazard. This study was undertaken to determine the knowledge, practice and reasons for practice of self-medication among health workers in a Nigerian tertiary institution.METHODS:
This was a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted among staff of Federal Medical Center Ido-Ekiti, Nigeria. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 305 respondents that were interviewed via a pretested semi-structured questionnaire. Analysis was done using SPSS version 15 and while chi-square test was used to test significance between variables, significant (p value set<0.05).RESULTS:
Among the 305 respondents interviewed, the age range was 18-52yrs with greater proportion being males (51.8%). Majority of respondents were aware of self-medication (94.8%), but only 47.2% had good knowledge of it. Reasons for practicing self-medication were financial problem (10.8%), mild sickness (10.8%), lack of time (13.4%), knowledge of diagnosis (5.6%), convenience (2.3%) and non-availability of doctors (3.0%). The drugs used by respondents without prescription included analgesics (38.2%), antibiotics (19.0%) anti-malaria drugs (13.3%), and others (29.4%). Conditions for which respondents self-medicated were body pains (14.9%), catarrh (14.9%), headache (14.3%), sore throat (11.5%), diarrhea (11.2%), fever (9.0%) and toothache (5.6%).CONCLUSION:
The study demonstrates that the prevalence of self-medication is relatively high. There is need for health education on the implication and danger of self-medication. There is also need for government to pass and enforce law to restrict free access to drugs.Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Automedicación
/
Conocimientos, Actitudes y Práctica en Salud
/
Personal de Salud
Tipo de estudio:
Observational_studies
/
Prevalence_studies
/
Qualitative_research
/
Risk_factors_studies
Límite:
Adolescent
/
Adult
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Female
/
Humans
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Male
/
Middle aged
País/Región como asunto:
Africa
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Pan Afr Med J
Año:
2016
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Nigeria