A remarkably high response rate of 100\u00c2\u00a0% was obtained, due to proper explanation of
\n research proposal and assurance of maintaining full confidentiality of the data they
\n provided. Three fifty participants (50\u00c2\u00a0%) were recruited from each hospital. The mean
\n age of the subjects was 48.5?\u00c2\u00b1?6.3, consisting of 441 (63\u00c2\u00a0%) males and 259 (37\u00c2\u00a0%)
\n females. Besides, 217 (31) participants were matriculated (grade 10),182 (26) had
\n secondary school degree (intermediate), 77 (11\u00c2\u00a0%) participants were graduated,49 (7\u00c2\u00a0%)
\n had qualification of post graduation and 175 (25\u00c2\u00a0%) OPD patients had no formal education.
\n Regarding occupation, 329 (47\u00c2\u00a0%) were employed,77 (11\u00c2\u00a0%) were retired, 161 (23\u00c2\u00a0%)
\n were un-employed and 133 (19\u00c2\u00a0%) were students. When questioned about monthly income,
\n 147 (21\u00c2\u00a0%) earned 5000 PKR, 210 (30\u00c2\u00a0%) responded in the range of 5000\u00e2\u20ac\u201c10,000PKR,
\n 182 (26\u00c2\u00a0%) subjects responded 10,000\u00e2\u20ac\u201c20,000 PKR, 95 (13.5\u00c2\u00a0%) responded 20,000\u00e2\u20ac\u201c50,000PKR,
\n 66 (9.5\u00c2\u00a0%) responded for 50,000PKR. Further,429 (61.3\u00c2\u00a0%) participants were married,
\n 122 (17.5\u00c2\u00a0%) were single,56 (8.0\u00c2\u00a0%) were widow and 92 (13.2\u00c2\u00a0%) were divorced. For
\n the subdivision of chronic illness, 365 (52.2\u00c2\u00a0%) were not having any chronic disease
\n where as 77 (11\u00c2\u00a0%) responded diabetes and 133 (19.0) claimed cardiovascular diseases.\n <\/p>\n
According to the survey, 595 (85\u00c2\u00a0%) subjects practiced self medication. The most common
\n reason evaluated for self medication was cost of consultation (90.3\u00c2\u00a0%), availability
\n of transport (81.0\u00c2\u00a0%), advice from friend\/family (78.0\u00c2\u00a0%), convenience (62.0\u00c2\u00a0%) and
\n previous experience (67.0). The prevalent symptoms that led rural dwellers to indulge
\n in self medication were headaches (81.0\u00c2\u00a0%), flu\/cough (79.0\u00c2\u00a0%), fever (68.0\u00c2\u00a0%) and
\n pain elsewhere in body (63.0\u00c2\u00a0%). As a result paracetamol as a painkiller (93.0\u00c2\u00a0%),
\n acetylsalicylic acid as an anti pyretic (69.0\u00c2\u00a0%), anti biotic (52.0\u00c2\u00a0%) and anti allergic
\n (51.0\u00c2\u00a0%) were the commonest drug used without prescription of a health care physician.
\n Besides, 90\u00c2\u00a0% (535) never read the instructions that are placed with medicine and
\n only 9\u00c2\u00a0% (54) read about side effects and contraindications. Moreover, 35\u00c2\u00a0% (208)
\n of the subjects practicing self medication adjusted dosage of medicine consulting
\n pharmacist and 22\u00c2\u00a0% (131) adjusted according to previous experiences.\n <\/p>\n
Furthermore, for the most prevalent self medicated drug, paracetamol (pain killers)
\n were used with the frequency of every few months by 216 (39\u00c2\u00a0%) subjects, 172 (42\u00c2\u00a0%)
\n subjects also used acetylsalicylic acid (anti pyretic) within every few months. However,
\n anti allergics were used by 136 (45\u00c2\u00a0%) participants with with the frequency of 2\u00e2\u20ac\u201c3
\n times in a year whereas same frequency was recorded for usage of antibiotics by 151
\n (49\u00c2\u00a0%) participants. Alarmingly, only 196 (33\u00c2\u00a0%) self medicated OPD patients were
\n aware of the fact that their practice can lead to harmful effects and only 150 (25.2\u00c2\u00a0%)
\n subjects among them appreciated that they should consult a medical physician before
\n starting a new medicine.\n <\/p>\n
Further analysis was performed to assess the significant difference associated with Table 1.<\/strong> Illustrates demographic features of study participants\n <\/p>\n Table 2.<\/strong> Illustrates factors and symptomatology that leads to self medication among study participants\n <\/p>\n Table 3.<\/strong> Illustrates attitudes of study participants towards self medication\n <\/p>\n Table 4.<\/strong> Depicts frequencies of most common self medicated drugs\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A remarkably high response rate of 100\u00c2\u00a0% was obtained, due to proper explanation of research proposal and assurance of maintaining full confidentiality of the data they provided. Three fifty participants (50\u00c2\u00a0%) were recruited from each hospital. The mean age of the subjects was 48.5?\u00c2\u00b1?6.3, consisting of 441 (63\u00c2\u00a0%) males and 259 (37\u00c2\u00a0%) females. Besides, 217 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n demographical features with regards to prevalence of self medication. There was no
\n significant difference between self medication practiced by male and females (p<\/em>?=?0.32; 41\u00c2\u00a0% vs 44\u00c2\u00a0%) and subjects having a chronic disease with participants having
\n no disease (p<\/em>?=?0.48; 42\u00c2\u00a0% vs 43\u00c2\u00a0%). However, a significant difference was obtained between participants
\n earning less than 50,000 PKR and greater than this amount (p<\/em>?=?0.029; 61\u00c2\u00a0% vs 24\u00c2\u00a0%) and for the self medicated patients having education less
\n than graduation with the participants having education of graduation or above it (p<\/em>?=?0.03; 63\u00c2\u00a0% vs 22\u00c2\u00a0%) (Tables 1, 2, 3 and 4).<\/p>\n