www.ijbcp.com International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology | March 2019 | Vol 8 | Issue 3 Page 388 IJBCP International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology Print ISSN: 2319-2003 | Online ISSN: 2279-0780 Original Research Article Prevalence and practice of self-medication among undergraduate medical students and non-medical students in south India J. Sujit Ralin Daniel 1 *, Prasanand S. 1 , Suba Joice 2 , Priscilla Jeba Rani 3 INTRODUCTION Self-medication is defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as “use of medicinal products by the consumer to treat self-recognized disorders or symptoms, the intermittent or continued use of a medication previously prescribed by a physician for chronic or recurring disease or symptom, or the use of medication recommended by lay sources or health workers not entitled to prescribe medicine”. 1 Medicines for self-medication are called non-prescription medicines or “over the counter” (OTC) medicines. These medicines are designed and labelled for use without medical supervision and are approved as safe and effective for such use. 2 Self-medication is fairly a common practice and when practised correctly, self-medication has a positive impact on individual and healthcare systems. It allows patients to ABSTRACT Background: Self-medication is commonly practiced worldwide and the irrational use of drugs for self-medication is a major cause of concern. The situation is more complex when a number of prescriptions only medicines are used for self-medication which are easily available over the counter through pharmacies without any prescription. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence and practice of self-medication among undergraduate medical students and non-medical students. Methods: This cross-sectional questionnaire based study was carried out among 100 undergraduate students of a tertiary care medical college and 100 undergraduate students of an arts and science college in south India. The respondents were selected from the students who were present on the day of study. A pre-tested, self-assessing questionnaire was used to obtain the information on the prevalence and practice of self-medication. Results: Self-medication was practiced by 96% and 92% of medical and nonmedical students respectively. Overall practice of self-medication was 94%. Majority of females were self-medicating than males, 94% and 90% respectively. The most common symptom leading to self-medication among medical students were cough and common cold compared to headache among nonmedical students. The commonly used medicines for self-medication in both the groups were analgesics, antipyretics, cough suppressants and antibiotics. More number of medical students reported the use of antibiotics to treat infections (70%) which was statistically significant. Conclusions: The prevalence and practice of self-medication was alarming in both groups. The use of antimicrobials was also found to be very high among medical students. It is a need of the hour to create better awareness regarding the use of drugs for self-medication, to implement policies to prevent the dispensing of medicines without any prescription which would remain as the cornerstone for reducing the practice of self-medication. Keywords: Medical, Non-medical, Respondents, Self-assessing questionnaire, Self-medication DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20190649 1 Department of Pharmacology, 2 Department of Community Medicine, 3 Department of Physiology, Dr. SM CSI Medical College & Hospital, Karakonam, Kerala, India Received: 08 January 2019 Accepted: 04 February 2019 *Correspondence to: Dr. J. Sujit Ralin Daniel, Email: dr.ralin@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open- access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non- Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non- commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.