Knowledge, attitudes and practice of self-medication among university students in Portugal: A cross-sectional study

摘要

Aims: To describe the knowledge, attitudes and practices of self-medication in college students and to analyse the predicting factors for the engagement in that behaviour. Design: This is a crosssectional study involving students (n ? 840) from a Portuguese university, selected through stratified and proportional sampling. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire containing, in addition to sociodemographic issues, a scale measuring knowledge about selfmedication (a ? .488), a scale measuring attitudes towards self-medication (a ? .708) and questions about the patterns of self-medication practices (a ? .445). Differences between outcomes and sociodemographics were analysed through independent t-tests and ANOVA. A generalised linear model was calculated to determine the predictive variables of self-medication. Results: Over half of the respondents ( 54.3%, n ? 434) had used some form of self-medication during the preceding year. Students revealed poor knowledge about the referred practice, correctly answering 1.60 (SD ? 0.936) questions in a total of 3, and favourable attitudes towards selfmedication (M ? 2.17, SD ? 0.950, range 1–5). Attending engineering sciences (b ? .718, 95% CI:1.373–3.069, p .001), being female (b ? .866, 95% CI: 1.700–3.327, p .001) and having negative attitudes towards self-medication (b ? .367, 95% CI: 1.227–1.698, p .001) predict the adoption of those practices. Conclusions: Self-medication is a common practice among university students, the level of self-medication knowledge is low and the low score of the level of attitudes revealed that students tended to have a correct positioning towards self-medication. Therefore, the recommendation to develop campaigns or educational programmes becomes obvious, in order to inform about the adverse effects of the use of non-prescribed medicine.