Self Medication Practices Among Adults in Delta State, Nigeria
Self care, including self medication has been a feature of healthcare. Nowadays, people are keen to accept more personal responsibility for their health status and to obtain as much sound information as possible from expert sources in order to help them make appropriate decisions in health care. We undertook this study to determine the prevalence, attitude, promoting factors and awareness of the benefits or risk of self medication amongst adults in Delta State. A cross sectional study was carried out in 14 randomly selected Local Government Areas in Delta State. A well structured, 21item questionnaire consisting of both open ended and close ended questions covering socio demographic characteristics and specific questions on self medication practices was used. The questionnaire were administered to adults aged 18 years and above in schools, offices and households. From a total of 5,007 adults that were surveyed, the male respondents were 2331 (46.0 while the female respondents were 2676 (53.4 The data obtained were coded and entered into Microsoft Excel 2007 and Graph Pad Instat statistical software version 3.0. Results were expressed as counts and percentages. Statistical comparison of data was done by Chi square test using Graph Pad Instat Version 3.0 and p values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. The prevalence of self medication was found to be high (89.4 97.9 reported to have used self medication two months prior to the study. patent medicine dealers were the commonest source of drug and information on medication. peer group was the most motivating factor for self medication (50.6 Headache was the major illness for self medication practice and the commonly used drugs were analgesics (80.5 There was a significant relationship between the illnesses and level of self medication (p 0.001, X2 22.414, df 18) and between and gender of subjects that self medicated (p< 0.001, X2= 188.2, df= 4) A large number of the respondents especially youths with formal education believed that self medication cannot be stopped despite their awareness of its harmful effects. Commonest illnesses responsible for self medication were headache, fever, cough, and cold with analgesics and antipyretics being the most commonly used drugs.