Background: Self-medication is a common practice in both developed and developing countries especially in low-income communities. Major problems related to self-medication are resources wastage, and serious health hazards like adverse reactions, prolonged suffering and antibiotic resistance.
Objective(s): This study was conducted to describe the pattern of self-medication in Sohag governorate and identify its associated factors.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1052 outpatients attending primary health care centers in five randomly selected districts in Sohag governorate. An interviewing questionnaire was designed to gather data including socio-demographic characteristics, suffering from chronic diseases, health care services used and opinion about health care services, whether practicing self- medication or not, and the pattern of the reported self-medication practices. Univariate and multiple binary logistic regression analysis were used to determine predictor variables of self-medication. Results: Self-medication was practiced by 41.4% of the participants. Out of them, 110 (25.2%) used drugs only, 97 (22.3%) used CAM and 229 (52.5%) used both drugs and CAM. Multiple binary logistic regression revealed that aging, rural residence, female gender, inconvenient perceived access to healthcare, presence of chronic diseases and income (1000-2000 pounds) per month were strong predictor variables of self-medication.
Conclusion: The study highlighted the wide practicing of self-medication using drugs and/or complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among the participants. There are many cases that do not have a medical or psychological explanation for use of CAM. It is mandatory to increase the awareness about self-medication problem and implementing strict measures to prevent drug dispensing through community pharmacies and herbalists. More attention should be paid to CAM and legalization of its use.