Self medication

Self medication is observed as practice used to treat the diseases among the common people. The practice is used by all types of patients & for different types of diseases. So this study is designed & under taken to find out determinants responsible for self-medication. These findings will be helpful to find measures to control it. So the randomized descriptive explored questionnaire survey was performed among various stake holders of health care sector and common people.96 % of people say that self medication is responsibility of all stake holders of area. Most of the people think that pharmacists can perform important role to improve the condition. The responsible factors for self medication are like expenses, literacy, unawareness etc.  Keywords: Self medication, Disease, Patients, Questionnaire survey, Pharmacists.  

Inappropriate use of drugs for self-medication leads to emergence of drug resistant pathogens and poses serious health hazards. To assess the pattern of self-medication among residents of Hyderabad city. The study was conducted in December 2011. It was a community based cross-sectional survey on a sample of 238 households, which were selected randomly.  Data was collected by pre-designed questionnaire. The most common system involved was the respiratory system (21.34 %). Analgesics were most commonly used drugs for self medication (18.48%) followed by usage of antibiotics (16.80%). Most of the drugs for self-medication were obtained from drug retail outlets (35.71%) followed by friends/ neighbors’/ family practice (34.45%). The major reason for using self-medication was attitude of not to waste money on doctors’ fees (37.81%) followed by inability to afford doctors’ fees (25.63%).From the study it was concluded that majority of the persons go for self medication without proper knowledge of dose, adverse drug reactions, drug interactions. Hence, the issue needs to be addressed by the responsible authorities of State Pharmacy Council/Ministry of Health. The availability of drugs in informal sectors contributed to the increase in self-medication. Though self-medication is hard to eliminate, drug law enforcement and educating the public at large is vital.