Original Research Article
Year: 2021 | Month: March | Volume: 8 | Issue: 3 | Pages: 659-664
A Community Based Study to Identify the Self-Medication Practices among Pediatric Population
AR Shabaraya1, Akhila Ullas2
1Professor & Head, Department of Pharmacy Practice, 2Student Pharm D, Department of Pharmacy Practice, Srinivas College of Pharmacy, Valachil, Mangalore, Karnataka-574143
Corresponding Author: Akhila Ullas
ABSTRACT
Self-medication refers to patients who use non-prescription medicines, usually over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, to treat certain ‘minor’ ailments themselves without consulting a medical practitioner and without any medical supervision. Self-medication is the self-consumption of medication without getting an advice from the physician for either diagnosis or treatment. About 22 (15%) of the subjects are always self - medicated whereas 57 (38%) go for self-medication only sometimes while the rest 71 (47%) are never self-medicated. Here it can be seen that majority of the study population do not practice self-medication. When the pattern of self-medication is analysed age wise as in figure 1, it is seen that between age 1-5 years only 1 patient is self-medicated always, 19 sometimes and 35 never while in age between 6-10 years 6 always, 29 sometimes and 18 never and in age group 11-18 about 15 always, 23 sometimes and 4 never undergoes self-medication. Therefore, it is seen that as the age group increases self-medication increases. 0-5year age group participants are the one with lowest self -medication while 11-18 age group has the highest self - medication found. There are several reasons for self - medication usually it is due to time constraint, knowledge about illness and medicine or ineffective prescription. The pediatric population, being a special population is in need of more vigilance and care to avoid self-medication errors and toxicity. Over the years, drugs like antibiotics have been over used beyond control in the pediatric population resulting in widespread resistance and there is a need to control this and promote judicious and efficacious drug use.
Keywords: self-medication, pediatric population.
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