Pattern of Self-Medication Practices among Rural Population of Mymensingh.

Self-medication is widely practiced in both developed and developing countries and an age old practice. Inappropriate self-medication results in increases resistance of pathogens, wastage of resources and serious health hazards. Present study was conducted to determine the pattern of self-medication practices among rural population. This cross-sectional study was carried out at community pharmacies in a rural area of Mymensingh district, Bangladesh from January 2017 to June 2017. Self-medication data were collected from well stocked licensed retail pharmacies and 20 pharmacies were randomly selected as the study site. Considering the prevalence of self-medication practices of 73.6% and relative precision of 10%, the calculated sample size was 138. The data was collected by conducting the interview with participants when they exited from the pharmacy. All data were coded, entered and analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences program version 20 (Chicago IL, USA). Descriptive analysis was employed for statistical evaluation of results. The practice of self medication was more common among age group 30-40 years (31.9%) and most of them were male (60.9%), married (54.3%), farmer (44.9%) and illiterate (42.8%). Family, friends or neighbors were the main source of information for self-medication (65.9%) and common ailments warranting self-medication were headache (52.9%), gastric pain (39.1%), respiratory problem & asthma (34.1%) and fever (30.4%). Multivitamins (76.8%), NSAIDs (65.9%), ranitidine (50.7%), antibiotics (50%), paracetamol (46.4%) and anti-allergic (39.1%) were most commonly used drugs. Over 35% of the participants who treated themselves reported improvement in their condition. Rising prevalence of self-medication is a matter of serious concern. Health education to people regarding responsible self-medication is necessary to prevent misuse and adverse effect of self-medication.