Knowledge and Practice of Self-medication among Undergraduate Medical Students
Keywords:
knowledge, medical students, Nepal, practice, self medicationAbstract
Introduction: Self-medication is an important aspect of self-care. It is a common practice in society and medical students are no exception. The aim of this study was to explore the knowledge and practice of self-medication among students of a medical school in Western Nepal.
Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among basic science and clinical students after obtaining prior consent from those willing to participate. Respondents’ degree of agreement with a set of 25 statements was noted using Likert scale to assess their knowledge. The practice of self-medication was studied by asking about the use of selected groups of medicines during the past one-year period and noting the pattern of use.
Results: Three hundred and thirty of the 356 students (92.6%) participated in the study. Mean knowledge score was 93.2 (SD = 8.1). Self-medication was practiced by 83.3% (n = 275) of respondents. Knowledge about self-medication differed among respondents according to gender (p = 0.03) and nationality (p = 0.04) but not other variables. Practice of self-medication was associated with father’s profession (p = 0.03) and nationality of the respondents (p = 0.04).
Conclusions: Students’ knowledge about self-medication was good and they commonly practiced self-medication. Pain-killers were the most commonly used drug.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The Journal of Lumbini Medical College (JLMC) publishes open access articles under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution(CC BY) License which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.JLMC requires an exclusive licence allowing to publish the article in print and online.
The corresponding author should read and agree to the following statement before submission of the manuscript for publication,
License agreement
In submitting an article to Journal of Lumbini Medical College (JLMC) I certify that:
- I am authorized by my co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
- I warrant, on behalf of myself and my co-authors, that:
- the article is original, has not been formally published in any other peer-reviewed journal, is not under consideration by any other journal and does not infringe any existing copyright or any other third party rights;
- I am/we are the sole author(s) of the article and have full authority to enter into this agreement and in granting rights to JLMC are not in breach of any other obligation;
- the article contains nothing that is unlawful, libellous, or which would, if published, constitute a breach of contract or of confidence or of commitment given to secrecy;
- I/we have taken due care to ensure the integrity of the article. To my/our - and currently accepted scientific - knowledge all statements contained in it purporting to be facts are true and any formula or instruction contained in the article will not, if followed accurately, cause any injury, illness or damage to the user.
- I, and all co-authors, agree that the article, if editorially accepted for publication, shall be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. If the law requires that the article be published in the public domain, I/we will notify JLMC at the time of submission, and in such cases the article shall be released under the Creative Commons 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver. For the avoidance of doubt it is stated that sections 1 and 2 of this license agreement shall apply and prevail regardless of whether the article is published under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 or the Creative Commons 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver.
- I, and all co-authors, agree that, if the article is editorially accepted for publication in JLMC, data included in the article shall be made available under the Creative Commons 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver, unless otherwise stated. For the avoidance of doubt it is stated that sections 1, 2, and 3 of this license agreement shall apply and prevail.
Please visit Creative Commons web page for details of the terms.
