Self-medication practice among consumers in Sana’a City

Abstract

Objective: To determine the prevalence of self-medication practice and its associated risk factors in Sana’a City. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out on consumers attending community pharmacies in Sana’a City. A self-administered questionnaire containing open-ended and closed-ended questions was developed and used for this study. Chi-square test and multiple logistic regressions were used in this study. Results: A total of 400 consumers were involved in this study. The prevalence of self-medication in the past six months was found to be 90.7 % (94.1% of females and 88.3% of males). In Multivariate analysis, chewing khat, smoking, availability of medical services near the residence and the perception about death due to self-medication were significant predictors of self-medication practice. Those who chewed khat were less likely to use self-medication compared to those who did not chew khat (OR= 0.296, CI 95% 0.100-0.882, p= 0.029). Similar results showed that smokers were less likely to use self-medication compared to non-smokers (OR= 0.429, CI 95% 0.206-0.895, p= 0.024). It was also found that those who have medical services near their residence were more likely to use self-medication compared to those who do not have medical services near their residence (OR= 3.022, CI 95% 1.384-6.596, p= 0.006). Moreover, those who did not believe that self-medication leads to death were more likely to use self-medication compared to those who believed that self-medication may leads to death (OR=2.645, CI 95% 1.232-5.681, p= 0.013). Conclusion: Self-medication practice was high among consumers in Sana’a City. Chewing khat, smoking, availability of medical services near the residence and the respondent perception about the possibility of death due to self-medication was significantly associated with self-medication.