Medicos too need medicine: a questionnaire based study of otc usage in mbbs students

OTC drugs are an inseparable attribute of democracy in which it is a human being who decides about their own future, including health OTC drugs provide people with an ability to treat the symptoms without thinking about the essence of the disease. Yet, every kind of freedom should be accompanied by knowledge and responsibility. The prevalence of self-medication practices is very high in the educated youth of India. It is the need of time to undertake certain measures to overcome the problem of self medication which may involve awareness and education regarding the implications of self-medication and strategies to prevent the supply of medicines without prescription by pharmacies. In this study the respondants were undergraduate medical students. The problem of drugs abuse among medical students is rarely the subject of a scholarly interest, so we may conclude that is rather underestimated. A feedback questionnaire covering various aspects of OTC drugs were distributed among the undergraduate medical students. The questionnaire was divided into two parts, part A assessed the prevalence and practice of self-medication and part B dealt with the attitude of students towards self medication. Information regarding the use, the factors affecting the use, ways of procurement, the type of medication, the source of information , motivating factors, illness for which the medication was used, reason for not consulting a doctor and the knowledge about and experience of adverse reactions amongst other information was collected. A total of 100 questionnaire feedbacks found to be completely filled were analysed.