Drug, Healthcare and Patient Safety (Jan 2022)
Self-Medication Practice with Antibiotics and Its Associated Factors Among Community of Bule-Hora Town, South West Ethiopia
Abstract
Fitsum Demissie,1 Kelil Ereso,1 Getahun Paulos2 1Department of Pharmacy, Institute of Health, Bule-Hora University, Bule-Hora, Oromia, Ethiopia; 2Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Institute of Health Sciences, Jimma University, Jimma, Oromia, EthiopiaCorrespondence: Getahun Paulos, Tel +251-911-72-44-71, Email [email protected]: Self-medication with antibiotics is being practiced worldwide with high prevalence, mostly in developing countries. Several factors induce the practice of self-medication, such as irrational and uncontrolled dispensing of medicinal substances, difficulty accessing health-care systems, and cost of diagnosis. Thus, this study assessed the prevalence of self-medication with antibiotics, and its associated factors among the community of Bule-Hora town, South West Ethiopia.Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study design was used. All households residing in Bule Hora town were used as source population and households in the selected kebeles were included by using a systematic random sampling method. Eight hundred twenty-six study participants were selected for the study. Pre-tested structured questionnaires had been used to collect the required data. Then the collected data were checked for completeness and analyzed by using SPSS version 20. Odds ratios with 95% C.I. were used to measure the association between independent variables and outcome and variables with p-value < 0.05 had been considered statistically significant.Results: Prevalence of self-medication with antibiotics in the past 12 months prior to the data collection was found to be 38.9% [95% CI (1.56, 1.64)]. Being male (AOR = 1.53; 95% CI: 0.489, 0.869) with p value of 0.004, no health insurance scheme (AOR = 2.16; 95% CI: 0.274, 0.779) and availability of some drugs in shop (AOR = 12.98; 95% CI: 0.017, 0.353) with p value of 0.001 were found to be significantly associated with self-medication of antibiotics.Conclusion: The study revealed that more than one-third of the respondents practiced self-medication. Availability and irrational dispensing of some drugs in the shops were significantly associated with self-medication practice. Therefore, it is important to educate society on the appropriate use of drugs and discourage the use of prescription drugs without medication order.Keywords: antibiotics, prevalence, self-medication, Bule-Hora
