Research Article Proportion of Ophthalmic Self-Medication and Associated Factors among Adult Ophthalmic Patients Attending Borumeda Hospital, Dessie, Northeast Ethiopia Nebiyat Feleke Adimassu , 1 Zemed Guchma Woldetsadik, 2 and Haile Woretaw Alemu 1 1 Department of Optometry, School of Medicine, College of Medicine and Health Science, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia 2 Ophthalmology Department, Boru Meda Hospital, Dessie, Amhara, National Regional State, Ethiopia Correspondence should be addressed to Nebiyat Feleke Adimassu; neby.uog@gmail.com Received 14 October 2019; Revised 2 March 2020; Accepted 19 March 2020; Published 25 April 2020 Academic Editor: Antonio Queiros Copyright © 2020 Nebiyat Feleke Adimassu et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Purpose. e aim of this study was to determine the proportion of ophthalmic self-medication and associated factors among adult ophthalmic patients attending Borumeda Hospital, Northeast Ethiopia, 2019. Methods. An institution-based cross-sectional study design was conducted on 402 participants at Borumeda Hospital from April 29 to May 24, 2019. Systematic random sampling technique was used to get study participants. Data were collected with a face-to-face interview by using a semistructured questionnaire. Data were entered into Epi Info 7 and analyzed by SPSS 20. Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression analysis were employed. P values of less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results. e proportion of ophthalmic self-medication was 28.6% (95% CI; 24.6–33.3). Age-group 29–42 years (AOR: 2.19, 95% CI: 1.06–4.52), absence of health insurance (AOR: 4.29; 2.35–7.84), more than 10 kilometer traveling distance to get eye services (AOR: 3.11; 1.58–6.12), previous experience of ocular illness (AOR: 2.62, 95% CI: 1.53–4.48), family or friend experience of ocular illness (AOR: 2.65, 95%CI: 1.43–4.92), availability of ophthalmic medicine bottle/tube at home (AOR: 4.59, 95% CI: 2.36–8.92), and poor knowledge about hazards of self-medication (AOR: 6.22; 3.26–11.85) were significantly associated with ophthalmic self-medication. Conclusion and Recommendations. e proportion of ophthalmic self-medication was high, which needs stakeholders’ attention. e policy- makers and regulatory body better to scale-up health insurance coverage, nearby accessible eye care services, improve knowledge of patients regarding the effect of ophthalmic self-medication, and proper disposal of leftover eye medication from the house. It is better to take regulatory actions on those who dispense ophthalmic medications without prescription. 1. Introduction Self-medication is defined as selection and use of medicines by individuals to treat self-recognized illnesses or symptoms [1]. Ophthalmic self-medication is also defined as obtaining and consuming one or more medications without the advice of the eye care professional. is behavior includes pur- chasing drugs without a prescription, using leftover doses from previous prescriptions, and sharing drugs with other family members [2]. People practice ophthalmic self-medication for a variety of reasons. Ocular symptoms like redness, watering of the eye, foreign body sensation, and itching of the eye are common symptoms that initiate to use ophthalmic self- medication. In addition to this, previous ocular illness, living far from the hospital, unaware and poor knowledge about hazards of self-medication, and simplifying their illness are among the factors for ophthalmic self-medication [2–6]. Globally, the prevalence of ophthalmic self-medication ranges from 25.6% to 73.6% [2–9]. e prevalence of self- medication has sharply increased throughout the world. It is common practice in developing countries. Worldwide from all drugs purchased without any prescription, 80% accounted by developing countries [10]. In Ethiopia, eye diseases were common illnesses that lead to self-medication [11–15]. Hindawi Journal of Ophthalmology Volume 2020, Article ID 6932686, 7 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/6932686