DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2016.v04i08.071

Pages: 3100-3106

Self medication is a major problem in today’s health care system, especially in country like India. Pharmacists and pharmacy attendants play an important role in fostering self medication among the public. The serious issues concerned with self medication are wastage of resources, microbial resistance, adverse drug reactions etc. Keeping these facts in mind, this study was conducted to assess the self medication practices and its determinants among urban dwellers of Dibrugarh town. A community based cross-sectional study was carried out in Dibrugarh town. The sample size of 260 was taken purposively. The study area was selected randomly and house to house visit was paid. Among the study population, 73.4% were male. Most (34.6%) were in the age group of > 41 years and 35.7% of the study population had attended High school to higher secondary school. Most (33.4%) of the population were belonged to upper middle class families. Prevalence of self medication was found to be 57.6%. Among them fever (10.7%), skin problems (8.4%), gastritis (6.9%) were found to be most common complaints for which they have purchased medicines. Among the study population 42.3% did not have any complaint at all. Among the type of medicines purchased, 18.7% were antipyretic, 15.3% were antihypertensive, 13.3% were analgesics. Reasons given for self medication includes 25% of study population were found it to be not a serious illness, 24% were not willing to approach Doctors, 13.3% were found it to be convenience. The association between the self medication pattern and age of the respondents (P<0.05), religion (P<0.05), type of family (P<0.05), educational status (P<0.05) and occupational status (P<0.05) were found to be statistically significant. The study revealed that self-medication is quite prevalent among urban dwellers belonging to middle and lower income group and majority of them were not aware about side effects that can occur if drugs are taken without doctor’s advice.