www.ijbcp.com International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology | January 2017 | Vol 6 | Issue 1 Page 104 IJBCP International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology Print ISSN: 2319-2003 | Online ISSN: 2279-0780 Original Research Article Socio-economics: a propensity of self-medication among OPD patients of a teaching hospital Subha Sankar Chattopadhyay, Angana Datta*, Aritra Ghosh, Suvadip Biswas, Krishnendu Mandal, Supreeti Biswas INTRODUCTION ‘Over the counter’ (OTC) drugs mean drugs legally allowed to be sold over the counters without prescription of a Registered Medical Practitioner. 1 In India CDSCO regulates import, manufacture, distribution and sale of drug and cosmetics by drugs and cosmetics act (DCA) and its subordinate legislation, drugs and cosmetic rules (DCR), 1940. All the non - prescription drugs which are sold over the counter to the general population also fall under these act and legislation. Prescription drugs fall under two schedules of the drug and cosmetics rule, 1945 schedule H and Schedule X. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in India published a notification in 2012 to incorporate a separate schedule H 1 under the drugs and cosmetics rule,1945 for regulating sale of antibiotics, certain anti-TB drugs and habit forming drugs; to decrease uncontrollable use of OTC drugs. Trend of using OTC drugs is high in India. Self medication increases the chances of illicit use of drugs and drug dependency. 2 Due to uncontrolled use of OTC drugs, signs and symptoms of underlying diseases are suppressed, hence incidence of delayed diagnosis, complications, treatment failure and drug resistance are increasing. 3-6 In several studies it has been shown that resistance of pathogen, ADR and drug dependence increase due to inappropriate use of drugs without expert opinion. 7-9 In our society it is a common practice to treat most illness by self medication. Due to lack of doctors in rural settings, low socio economic status and illiteracy many of our rural people buy OTC drugs from nearby medicine shops. 10 Very commonly they use non-steroidal anti- ABSTRACT Background: Use of over the counter (OTC) drug is very much common in India. Not only medical professionals or educated urban population but also it is common in rural area and low educated person. This study was done to assess the extent of knowledge and practices of OTC drugs among OPD patients of a tertiary care hospital. Methods: A questionnaire based study was conducted among 1680 Medicine OPD (outpatient department) patients. Results: Among the participants, 62% patients taking OTC drugs at least once in their life. Most common symptoms for self-medication were fever (89%), cough and cold (78%), headache (67%), pain (53%), diarrhea (10%), vomiting (10%), indigestion (20%). Antipyretics (65%), analgesics (35%) among NSAIDs which were common used as OTC drugs. Others drugs were antacids (50%), cough and cold preparations (50%), Vitamins (30%), antiemetics (5%). Conclusions: Awareness is necessary to use drugs rationally with proper prescription and know about harmful effects of OTC drugs. Keywords: Awareness, NSAIDs, Over the counter drug, Proper prescription, Questionnaire DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20164761 Department of Pharmacology, Burdwan Medical College and Hospital, Burdwan 713104, West Bengal, India Received: 16 October 2016 Accepted: 17 November 2016 *Correspondence to: Dr. Angana Datta, Email: dr.anganadatta26@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.