Knowledge and Attitude Regarding Self Medication among the People Residing in the Urban Field Practice Area of a Medical College, Mysuru, Karnataka

Introduction: Self - medication involves acquiring medicines without a prescription, resubmitting old prescriptions to purchase medicines, sharing medicines with relatives or members of one?s social circle or using leftover medicines stored at home. Objectives: To assess the Knowledge and Attitude related to self - medication among the people residing in urban field practice area of Medical College, Mysuru. Methodology: It is a cross - sectional study done among the urban field practice areas of the department of Community Medicine, JSS Medical College, Mysuru, Karnataka, India. Sample size was calculated to 383 and Systematic Random Sampling technique was used to collect the data. Results: The overall usage of self - medication was found to be 73.3%. In this study majority of the participants knew about self - medication and they were aware of side effects caused due to self - medication. Most of the participants has known about the prescription required before purchasing any medicine. In the current study participants had a negative attitude towards self - medication. The main reasons for practicing self - medication are the perception that there is no need to visit the doctor for minor illness, followed by quick relief upon the usage of self - medication and Economic constraints. Conclusion: Nearly 2/3rd of the study participants practiced self - medication. Even though people had good knowledge and negative attitude regarding self - medication, practice was high. There is a strong need to implement health education through IEC and BCC activities to the public regarding the consequences of self - medication and antibiotics to prevent antimicrobial resistance and rational usage of drugs.