A Survey on Self Medication among the General Population in Pondicherry

Abstract

Although pharmaceuticals have made a main influence to health, a large proportion of the world’s population today are facing problems when consuming and accessing medicines. Healthcare professionals are usually sharing their health decisions with their patients in terms of the availability of medicines and its accessibility. Accordingly, patients are being more involved in taking actions either with or without direct healthcare professional guidance, seeking for other facilities to obtain medicines or tend to self-care. Self medication is becoming common in our routine life. This is actually an unhealthy and risky practices. Present study was done to determine the survey on self medication among the general population. A cross sectional study was conducted among the general population of pondicherry.111 persons took part in this cross sectional study. Data is analysed using suitable statistical methods. Among 111 persons    participated in the study the most common reason to take self medication is in case of minor illness and the sources of information about the drug is from the previous prescription and the drugs they get from medical shop. Only 28.4 % visits the qualified medical practioner in case of illness and mostly they have taken medicines for cough, cold, sore throat and followed by that they have taken medications for headache. Out of 111 persons most of them have taken is analgesics followed by allergy medications. The general population has taken the self medication which is a wrong practice.