WRITTEN ARTICLE ON SURVEY OF; INCREASING CONCEPT AND DEPENDENCY OF SELF-MEDICATION

 

This survey was conducted by Miss Dania Fatima on the topic "Increasing concept and dependency of self medication". Miss dania was facilitated by her team leads, Aymen Arif ( Program Manager at SBA), Hira Jamil ( Executive member at SBA) and Khalid Baloch (Founder,CEO & Trainer at SBA).

INTRODUCTION

Self‑medication has traditionally been defined as “the taking of drugs, herbs or home remedies on one’s own initiative, or on the advice of another person, without consulting a doctor. As it is a very prevailing issue, through this article we tried to explain the dependency of self-medication which is leading cause to severe problems like resistance to antibiotics, misdiagnosis, prolonged illness, and adverse side effects on the human body systems. Through this survey we tried to gather data and analyse the rate of dependency on self-medication and self-diagnosis in people belonging to mediocre family background and tried to find the root cause of this prevailing issue.

AIMS & OBJECTIVES

1. To find what are the reinforcements of practicing self-medication.
2. To observe how much of the sample population is dependent on self- medication
3. To observe if education matters while committing such illiterate act.
4. Do people have idea about the adverse effects/side effects.
5. If people suffering from medical issue also depend on self-medication.

PURPOSE/REFLECTION

It was important to carry out this survey because, in this era most of the population is going towards and practicing taking medicines without doctors consultation, so it was important to enlighten people that it has hazardous effect on our immune system and mis diagnosis or temporary pressing of illness can cause severe damage to our body and can result fatal as well. In most cases people tend to take medicines previously prescribed to them during first onset of similar symptoms, it does provide temporary relief, but constant compression of symptoms can lead to severity in the disease and increase fatality rate.

 

METHODOLOGY

This research followed survey-based methodology. The methodology used to gather the information regarding the cause of self-medication and, how and why people are going towards self-medication was through a questionnaire. The sampling technique for sample population was simple random sampling. The questionnaire was produced on google forms, it consisted of number of questions in accordance to the aims and objectives and designed in such a way to gain more data in order to conclude our results. It had three sections and a total of 15 questions, first section was basic demographic data which had 4 questions, second section was for population suffering from medical issues and consisted of 2 question and third for whole of sample population and had 9 questions. The questionnaire was approved by the SBA team after which it was shared on different SBA platforms and circulated within my friend circles. After two weeks of sharing the questionnaire 78 responses were collected on basis of which concise observations and results were made.

OBSERVATIONS

The survey was attempted by 67 females and 10 males within the age limit of 20-50 years old. The educational levels of the participates; 47.4% were graduated, 30.8% were post graduates, 20.5 % were intermediate pass while 1.3% had matric level education.

In order to know if the population had medical issues, a question was included regarding it, that showed 57.7% had no medical issues while 30.8% had somekind of medical issues and 11.5% werent sure about it.

On the basis of the mentioned stats it showed that majority of the population had basic level of education and were literate enough to understand the pros and cons of self- medications. After keeping in mind the educational levels and medical issues, following results were made.

RESULTS

The observations showed that out of the 30% participants who had medical concerns, 73% were taking medicines for the condition and 33.4% of which were not prescribed by the doctor.

In the section for all participants, we asked what is their first step they take when they get sick. 25 participants waited for symptoms to increase, 22 participants took the medicines which were previously prescribed by the doctor and only 13 participants tend to go the doctor when they feel sick, and 11 participants attempted home remedies to restore their health, 4 did nothing, 2 started taking antibiotics and 1 participant preferred cupping sessions.

 

For the question if they take medicine prescribed by the relatives or do they prescribe medicine to relatives, 40.3% had negative response, 36.4 sometimes preferred taking medicines advised by the relatives, 14.3% said they might take them while 9.1% claimed that they always take medicines prescribed by the relatives.

 

 

In accordance to the survey main reason of  people take self-medicines is because they keep having same issues and got well after taking certain medicines(48.7%), some have hospital phobia and are scared of hospital(12.8%), some have faith in people other than doctors and think they are more experienced to give them medicines(14.10%), little feel doctors fees are really high and can afford to go to the doctor(7.7%), 2.60% were too lazy to consult the doctor, and 1.30% didn’t had access to a hospital.

 

The following pie chart shows if taking medicines without doctor’s prescription helped people to regain their health.

65% participants feel that self-medication should not be practiced while 35% feels its fine to take medicines without doctors advise.

When asked if they had idea that self-medication has adverse effect on our body 28.2% (22 participants) had positive response while 60.3% (47 participants) were not sure about it and 11.5% (9 participants) had negative response.

 

 

CONCLUSIONS

Keeping the results and observations in mind it can be concluded that.

1. The major reinforcement of practicing self-medication comes form relatives who tend to prescribe medicines to people on the basis is their personally experiences even when they are not sure about the medicines and the side effects.
2.   Around 30-50% of the sample population is taking medicines for some reason or the other without consultation of the doctor.
3. As shown above most of the sample population has basic level of education and are literate enough to distinguish between right and wrong, this shows that it doesn’t matter if the population is literate or not they yet are practicing this heinous and life taking act.
4.  People do have an idea about the side effects and adverse effects of taking unprescribed medicines, but they should be informed more about it as 60% is not sure if it does have side effects or not.
5. Almost 30% of the population suffering from medical issues are taking unprescribed medicines, which is very alarming can prove to be fatal for the patients.

REFERENCES

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3. Ruiz, Maria E. "Risks of self-medication practices." Current drug safety 5.4 (2010): 315-323.
4. Bennadi, Darshana. "Self-medication: A current challenge." Journal of basic and clinical pharmacy 5.1 (2013): 19.