Saira Afzal, Fariha Salman, Tayyab Hayat, Umair Khan Sherwani, Umair Ahmad Siddiqui, Qasim Ishtiaq, Maheen Anwar, Shifa Ghazanfar, Somia Pervaiz, Warda Hameed, Weena Khalid.
The Determinants of Self Medications.
Ann King Edward Med Uni Jan ;19(1):70-6.

Self medication is the selection and use of medicines by individuals to treat self recognized illnesses or sym-ptoms. Objectives: To identify various psychosocial factors associated with self medication. Design: Population based case control study. Place and Duration: Lahore-12 months. Subjects and Methods: A population based case - control study with 1:1 case to control ratio was con-ducted. A total of 100 persons (50 cases and 50 con-trols) were recruited in study. Selection was made on laid down criteria after taking due consent. Interviews were conducted through a pretested questionnaire. Data was collected, compiled and analyzed through SPSS version 19. After describing the demographic characteristics using frequency tables, simple and mul-tivariate logistic regression was used to calculate odds ratio and their 95% confidence intervals. Results: Total number of subjects was 100. Self medication was found to be more in people below age 25 years (87%) (mean 18 ± 0.338 SD). It was more common in females (61%) as compared to males (39%). It was also found that self medication was more in people with education above metric (96%) than those below metric (4%). People who were un-married (85%) did self medication more frequently than unmarried (15%). In bivariate analysis, easy avai-lability of drugs, self confidence, lower socioecono-mic status, repeated exposure to disease, hesitancy to visiting the doctor, anxiety and edge of education were found to be significantly associated with self medication. However in multivariate analysis, while controll-ing all other risk factors, illiteracy, repeated exposure to disease, hesitancy to visit the doctor and edge of education were significantly associated with self medication.

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