European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

THE PREVALENCE OF SELF-MEDICATION AMONG MOTHERS IN BURRI DISTRICT, SUDAN

Nafisa A. M. Attia, Abdelbasit E. M. Ahmed, Tariq Zafar, Mohammed A. Elawad*, Omer Alhaj

ABSTRACT

Self-medication is the use of drugs to treat self-diagnosed disorders or symptoms, or the intermittent or continued use of a prescribed drug for chronic or recurrent diseases or symptoms. The practice is more frequent particularly in developing countries. Many side effects of self-medication practice are expected to occur. A study was carried out in Burri district in the capital of Sudan to measure the prevalence of self-medication among mothers. A total of 287 mothers were selected from the district using systemic random sampling. Relevant data were collected using a pre-coded and close-ended questionnaire. The prevalence of self-medication among mothers in Burri district, Sudan was found to be 16.4%. About 88.5% of mothers were taking their treatment regularly. Approximately 72.5% of the mothers took medicines from the nearest pharmacy, 25.1% of the mothers took medicines from health centers' pharmacy and 2.4% of the mothers take them from both pharmacies. There was statistical association between medication method and age of mothers (χ2 = 6.319, P = 0.0424) as well as with educational level of mothers (χ2 = 6.023, P = 0.0141). The study concluded that the prevalence of self-medication is high and expected to reduce the quality of medical care and leads to a waste of resources.

Keywords: prevalence, self-medication, mothers, pharmacy, Sudan.