American Journal of Advances in Nursing Research

A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY TO ASSESS THE KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE REGARDING SELFMEDICATION AMONG STUDENTS AT SELECTED DEGREE COLLEGES OF JODHPUR

Jyoti Poonawat and Mohammed Rizwan

poonawatjyoti@gmail.com

Self-care, Self-medication, Degree College, Knowledge, Attitude, Practice

Self-medication is a human behavior in which an individual uses a substance or any exogenous influence to self-administer treatment for physical or psychological ailments. In this study, researcher wants to drag attention towards the various aspects involved in the prevalence of self-medication among students of nursing, pharmacy, arts and education department. AIM OF THE STUDY: Assess the knowledge, attitude and practice regarding self-medication among students. METERIAL AND METHOD A descriptive study was carried out to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of 200 students selected by purposive sampling, from each department of Nursing, Pharmacy, Arts and Education of selected degree colleges, Jodhpur. Data were collected by using a structured questionnaire including socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge, attitude, and practice associated with different aspects of self-medication and analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. RESULT: It was found that majority (56%) of the Students had average knowledge with mean knowledge score 15.09±2.78 and mean percent 59.64%, majority (90.5%) of the students had Negative Attitude and majority (65%) of the students had Poor Practice regarding Self-medication. It was found that there is no relation between the knowledge, attitude and Practice regarding self-medication among students. However, the majority of the demographic variable of the students indicates no significant association between level of knowledge, attitude and practice except parent’s occupation with the level of knowledge and family income with attitude at the level of p ? 0.05 level. CONCLUSION: Self-care is not always effective especially when done inappropriately or irresponsibly. Health educational programs should be launched in favour of responsible self-medication as well should also be added in student’s curriculum