Self-Medication Patterns among Turkish University Students

Objective: This study aims to determine the prevalence of self-medication practice among university students in Turkey and the effective factors and self-medication practices. Methods: To conduct a descriptive cross-sectional study, this study was conducted with 494 undergraduate students selected through a stratified random weight-proportional sample. The students were asked to fill in a self-report questionnaire form including introductory characteristics and self-medication practices. Analyses were carried out using descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression. Results: The prevalence of self-medication at any time was determined to be 81.6% (n=403). The prevalence of self-medication was 84.9% in females and 75.6% in males (OR 2.0, 95% CI 1.2-3.3, p=0.005). Of the participants, 27.5% (n=111) bought the medication by their own preferences and experiences. The most common self- medication symptoms of the participants were headache (90.8%). Self-medication drug groups were in the form of analgesics in 95.9% (n=259) of females and 93.2% (n=123) of males. The prevalence of antibiotic self-medication was 9.5% in the self-medication group and 7.7% for all participants. Due to self-medication, 8.2% (n=33) of the students experienced an adverse effect at any time. The students in the self-medication group believed that there would not be serious adverse effects caused by the OTC drugs even if they caused adverse effects (30.5%) or that they would not cause any adverse effects (3.8%). Conclusions: Self-medication is a common behavior among university students, with higher rates in females. Students practice this largely by relying on their previous experiences. They mostly prefer medicines previously given by their physicians for similar conditions.