Prevalence, Source and Reasons of Self-Medication among the Patients; A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Self-medication is widely practiced worldwide. Hence, this study was designed to determine the prevalence of self-medication for dental problems before dental consultation and its associated factors among patients attending the hospital. Objective: The aim and objective of this study was to assess self-medication practice. To determine the factors associated with self-medication practice and to identify most frequently used drugs by patients. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Settings: Lahore University College of Medicine and Dentistry, Lahore Pakistan. Duration: One moth, April 2022. Methods: Sample size of 130 was calculated and data were analyzed with simple descriptive statistics. This study was approved ethically by the ethical review committee of the University College of Dentistry, University of Lahore, Lahore Pakistan. Results: Results showed that there was high prevalence of self-medication in our population especially among female patients. Conclusion: Self-medication was quite high in our population. It could be due to the fact that medications are easily accessible at the pharmacies. People can easily take the medicines without prescription of the doctors which is wrong on part of the community as they are not aware about the harmful effects of medications.