Publications

Self-medication, as one element of self-care, is the selection and use of medicines by individuals to treat selfrecognizedillnesses or symptoms. It is use of non-prescription medicines by people on the basis of their owninitiatives. Although, over the counter drugs are meant for self-medication and are of proven efficacy and safety,their improper use could have serious implications both on health care professionals and their patients or clients.Social work is one of the caring professions which involve promoting and protecting the welfare of individuals andthe wider community. Since, health care professionals are also segments of the community they can also be potentialcandidates for social work intervention. This study aimed to assess self-medication practice among senior medicalstudents of Kampala International University Teaching Hospital. Facility based cross-sectional study was conductedamong senior medical students selected using stratified random sampling technique. Sample size was calculated tobe 294. Data was collected and entered in to Epi-info version 3.6 and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Descriptivestatistics was employed. Statistical significance was declared at p-value<0.05. The findings indicated that 90% of therespondents utilize self-medication and 60% of them practice self-medication for headache/ fever. And painkillerswere the most widely used type of medicine. The major reason the respondents practice self-medication was foundto be mild illness. In the multivariate analysis, age and sex were associated with self-medication practice. Thefindings of the study have implication on policy that there is a need to reevaluate drug and health policies of thecountry and formulate rules and regulations regarding drug use.