SELF-MEDICATION PREVALENCE AND RELATED FACTORS AMONG BACCALAUREATE NURSING STUDENTS

Self-medication is act of ingestion of drugs without prescription and it is quiet common among the health care professionals as they have basic knowledge of pharmacology. Nurses have the access to the medication and their prime role is drug administration, hence they are prone to indulge in self-medication. Therefore, study was done with an objective for identification of patterns and self medication related factors among Baccalaureate nursing students. Structured self-reporting was the tool used for collection of data and analysis of data was done by applying descriptive and inferential statistics. Results revealed that fever (75.9%) was the major ailment for which self-medication was sought, followed by headache (71.6%), common cold (61.2%) and body ache (42.2%). Majority of participants believe that their symptoms are not serious (84.5%) and they have sufficient knowledge about medicines (71.5%) and that's why they prefer self-medication over medical advice. 32.7% also believes that self-medication saves time. The most common method for obtaining the self-medication among participants is to ask straight ways to chemist/pharmacist by stating the drug name (63.8%), followed by explaining symptoms to chemist and asking for medication Concl usion – Taking medicines without doctors' prescription is common in Baccalaureate nursing students which need to be monitored and controlled to prevent abuse and dependency on drugs.