Self Medication Practice among the People Residing in Hilly Area

The study was aimed To study the practice of Self Medication among the people residing in hilly area and To find out the reasons of self medication of study population. Methodology- The present study was carried out in hilly areas of Patan Taluka in Satara District. Out of 13 P. H. Cs. in Patan Taluka, Kalgaon P. H. C. was selected randomly and all households in Nivi village selected randomly were included in this study. There were 143 households in the village and all heads of families were the study subjects who were interviewed using pretested and validated questionnaire. RESULTS- Prevalence of practice of self medication was 87.4 % in the study area. As only heads of families were most of them were males (77.62 %) and rest of female. Only in absence, females were interviewed Surprisingly all study subjects were illiterate. the reasons for self medication among study subjects showing multiple reasons like economic, ignorance and relief from previous drug were major reasons for self medication 97.6 %; 92 %; 98.4 % respectively, however very few were stated the reason as absence of health services. (11 %). Health worker in villages were the major source of information for them (87.2 %), followed by other staff of health centre (32 %) and chemist (28 %). Majority of the study subject practiced traditional system of self medication 95.2 %, followed by modern system (allopathic) of medicine (92.8 %) the common conditions practiced for self medication in descending order as fever (100 %), cough (87.2 %), headache (85.6 %) and diarrhea (55.2).