Practices, awareness and attitudes toward self-medication of analgesics among health sciences students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Self-medication is a common practice among health sciences students in Saudi Arabia. It is known that inappropriate selfmedication may harm individuals due to increasing the risk of drug misuse or delaying a hospital visit by masking some symptoms. Thus, the aim of our study is to investigate and as...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Saudi pharmaceutical journal 2019-02, Vol.27 (2), p.235-239
Main Authors: Al Essa, Mohammed, Alshehri, Abdulmajeed, Alzahrani, Mohammed, Bustami, Rami, Adnan, Shazia, Alkeraidees, Atheer, Mudshil, Amjad, Gramish, Jawaher
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analgesics
Saudi Arabia
Self-medication
Students
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Summary:Self-medication is a common practice among health sciences students in Saudi Arabia. It is known that inappropriate selfmedication may harm individuals due to increasing the risk of drug misuse or delaying a hospital visit by masking some symptoms. Thus, the aim of our study is to investigate and assess practices, awareness and attitudes toward analgesics self-medication among health science students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This is a cross-sectional study in a form of electronic survey that was conducted among health sciences students from different universities in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 2016. Two hundred and seventy-two students responded to the questionnaire. The electronic questionnaire survey covered demographics, self-medication practice and the analgesics consumption, attitude and awareness about the safety of self-medication practice of analgesics. Factors associated with high prevalence of self-medication were not significant except for age (P = 0.04). Health sciences students had adequate knowledge about the safety of analgesics consumption itself and simultaneous use of analgesics with other drugs, significantly different by college; 80% for Pharmacy, 71% for Medicine, 61% for Nursing and Dentistry, and 25% for Applied Medical Sciences and pre-professional students (p = 0.037). The occurrence of self-medication practices is distressingly high among health sciences students. It is necessary to educate the students about the side effects and drawbacks of irresponsible selfmedication.
ISSN:1319-0164
2213-7475
DOI:10.1016/j.jsps.2018.11.004