Assessment of Self-Medication Use among University Students

Abstract

Aims: To describe the knowledge, attitudes and practices of self-medication in college students and to analyse the predicting factors for the engagement in that behaviour. Design: This is a cross-sectional study involving students (n ¼ 840) from a Portuguese university, selected through stratified and proportional sampling. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire containing, in addition to sociodemographic issues, a scale measuring knowledge about self-medication (a ¼ .488), a scale measuring attitudes towards self-medication (a ¼ .708) and questions about the patterns of self-medication practices (a ¼ .445). Differences between outcomes and sociodemographics were analysed through independent t-tests and ANOVA. A gen-eralised linear model was calculated to determine the predictive variables of self-medication. Results: Over half of the respondents (54.3%, n ¼ 434) had used some form of self-medication during the preceding year. Students revealed poor knowledge about the referred practice, correctly answering 1.60 (SD ¼ 0.936) questions in a total of 3, and favourable attitudes towards self-medication (M ¼ 2.17, SD ¼ 0.950, range 1-5). Attending engineering sciences (b ¼ .718, 95% CI: