A study to assess the patterns of self medication practice among women employees working in health care services

Hafeez SA, Rao BS, Jyotsna MM, Ramanamurthy KV

Pdf Page Numbers :- 11-17

Sheik Abdul Hafeez^1,2*, Srinivasa Rao B³, Mary Jyotsna M¹, and Ramanamurthy KV³

¹Academics Wing, OMNI Hospitals, Hyderabad-500102, Telangana State, India

²Department of Biotechnology, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur-522510, Andhra Pradesh, India

³KIMS Foundation and Research Centre, Minister Road, Secunderabad - 500003, Telangana, India

⁴Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, A.U. College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam-530003, Andhra Pradesh, India

*Corresponding author: Dr. Sheik Abdul Hafeez, MSc., PhD., MA., MBA., Principal, Academics Wing, OMNI Hospitals, Hyderabad-500102, Telangana State, India. Email: hafeez@omnihospitals.in

Received 28 September 2020; Revised 18 November 2020; Accepted 2 December 2020; Published 12 December 2020

Citation: Hafeez SA, Rao BS, Jyotsna MM, Ramanamurthy KV. A study to assess the patterns of self medication practice among women employees working in health care services. J Med Sci Res. 2021; 9(1):11-17. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17727/JMSR.2021/9-3

Copyright: © 2021 Hafeez SA et al. Published by KIMS Foundation and Research Center. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Abstract

Objective: To assess the patterns of self medication practice among women employees working in health care services.

Study design: A non experimental survey approach with descriptive design was selected to understand the patterns of self medication among women employees working in health care services. Study was conducted in OMNI group of Hospitals, Hyderabad, India.

Methods: Interview schedule was prepared with systematic reviewed literature and data was obtained from 600 sample selected using convenient sampling technique. Collected data was analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics using statistical package for the social sciences software version-20. Graphical representation was made for significant findings.

Results: Women employees under study, 437 (72.8%) stated that they are self medication users which was considerably the highest percentage, majority 250(41.7%) of them have family and friends as there source of knowledge. The study results showed that majority of the sample are using self medication in specific patterns. It also proved that maximum number of sample i.e., 455 (75.8%) inform the physician about self medicated drugs on consultation, 434 (72.3%). Procure drug only from pharmacy, 424 (70.7%) avoid self medication with old prescription and 419 (69.8%) stated that they avoid sharing drugs prescribed to someone else.

Conclusion: Self medication is widely practiced among women employees in health care services and is an emerging cause of self induced risk factor for healthy living, due to the knowledge and hand to hand availability of drugs.

Keywords: self medication; women employees; patterns of self medication practice