Self-Medication Practice among Health Care Professionals and Its Effect on Patients or Clients at Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital Addis Ababa Ethiopia
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2017-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Self-medication, as one element of self-care, is the selection and use of medicines by individuals to treat self recognized illnesses or symptoms. It is use of non-prescription medicines by people on the basis of their own initiatives. Although, over the counter drugs are meant for self-medication and are of proven efficacy and safety, their improper use could have serious implications both on health care professionals and their patients or clients. Social work is one of the caring professions which involve promoting and protecting the welfare of individuals and the wider community. Since, health care professionals are also segments of the community they can also be potential candidates for social work intervention. This study aimed to assess self-medication practice among health care professionals and its effect on patients/clients at Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital. Facility based cross-sectional study was conducted among eight categories of health professionals selected using stratified random sampling technique. Sample size was calculated to be 294. Data was collected and entered in to Epi-info version 3.6 and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Descriptive statistics was employed. The strength of association was computed using odds ratio. Furthermore, bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regression analyses were used to identify significant associations. Statistical significance was declared at p-value<0.05. The findings indicated that 90% of the respondents utilize self-medication and 59.8% of them practice self-medication for headache/ fever. And painkillers were the most widely used type of medicine. The major reason the respondents practice self-medication was found to be mild illness. In the multivariate analysis, age, sex and work experience were associated with self-medication practice. The findings of the study have implication on policy that there is a need to reevaluate drug and health policies of the country and formulate rules and regulations regarding drug use
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Social Work