Prevalence and Determinants of Self- Medication Practices for Common Illnesses among People in Thimphu, Bhutan

Abstract

Self-medication is the use of medicines without any prescription or consultation from health professionals, usually over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are obtained for the treatment of minor common illnesses. Self-medication is more or less practiced globally. The aim of the study was to estimate the prevalence of self-medication, type of drugs used to treat common illnesses and to determine the factors related to self-medication. A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted in the selected private pharmacies of Thimphu. The study population included both male and female aged 18 years and above who visited the pharmacies for medicine. The collected data were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 20.0. Out of 275 participants, 115 were male and 160 were female. The prevalence of self-medication for male and female were 57.4% and 65.0%, respectively. Most of the participants have done self-medication for eye/ear infection (90.9%), fever (84.9%), and headache (80.5%). Types of drugs used for self-medication were multivitamins (80.0%), followed by NSAIDs (72.5%) and antibiotics (8.3%). Self-medication

was mostly recommended by friends/neighbors (79.6%) (46.5%) and self-decision (77.8%). Self- medication practice was common among individuals aged between 18 to 25 years. Self- medication exercise was more common in female than male. The study highlights that the

respondents have less knowledge about drug-resistant and side effects of the drugs they take for

self-medication and therefore, proper drug regulations and interventions inclusive of self- medication in the country should be implemented for controlling self-medication practices.

Further study is needed in Bhutan both in the rural and urban places to assess the prevalence of self-medication to provide proper health care services to the people.