Self Medication and its Pattern among Patients Attending the General Outpatient Clinic of a Tertiary Institution in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, Nigeria

BackgroundSelf medication is the practice of taking medicines by individuals to treat self recognised symptoms or illness without the prescription of a health practitioner. ObjectivesThis study seeks to assess the frequency, pattern of self medication, and the different forms of medications used by patients who attend the outpatient clinic of a tertiary hospital. MethodsThis was a cross-sectional study that lasted for three months.The respondents were selected using systematic random sampling.A pretested semi-structured interviewer administered questionnaire was used to collect information from the respondents.The data was analyzed using Epi info version 7 and significance level was set at P<0.05. ResultsThe study involved 398 patients with mean age and standard deviation of 37.18±14.9.Males were 161 (40.45%) and females were 237 (59.55%).The frequency of self medication was 375 (89.70%) and those who live in the urban areas were about twice more likely to practice self medication than rural dwellers.The medicines used for self medication include multivitamins (99.5%), antimalarials (79.15%), analgesics (66.33%), and antibiotics (46.98%). ConclusionSelf medication practice was high among our respondents, rural dwellers were more likely to practice self medication than urban dwellers and the drugs commonly used for self medication include multivitamins, analgesics, antimalarials and antibiotics.