Al Essa Mohammed, Alshehri Abdulmajeed, Alzahrani Mohammed, Bustami Rami, Adnan Shazia, Alkeraidees Atheer, Mudshil Amjad, Gramish Jawaher
College of Pharmacy, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, P.O. BOX 3660, Riyadh 11426, Saudi Arabia.
Pharmaceutical Care Services, King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh, MC 1445, Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Pharm J. 2019 Feb;27(2):235-239. doi: 10.1016/j.jsps.2018.11.004. Epub 2018 Nov 10.
Self-medication is a common practice among health sciences students in Saudi Arabia. It is known that inappropriate selfmedication may harm individuals due to increasing the risk of drug misuse or delaying a hospital visit by masking some symptoms. Thus, the aim of our study is to investigate and assess practices, awareness and attitudes toward analgesics self-medication among health science students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
This is a cross-sectional study in a form of electronic survey that was conducted among health sciences students from different universities in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 2016. Two hundred and seventy-two students responded to the questionnaire. The electronic questionnaire survey covered demographics, self-medication practice and the analgesics consumption, attitude and awareness about the safety of self-medication practice of analgesics.
Factors associated with high prevalence of self-medication were not significant except for age (P = 0.04). Health sciences students had adequate knowledge about the safety of analgesics consumption itself and simultaneous use of analgesics with other drugs, significantly different by college; 80% for Pharmacy, 71% for Medicine, 61% for Nursing and Dentistry, and 25% for Applied Medical Sciences and pre-professional students (p = 0.037).
The occurrence of self-medication practices is distressingly high among health sciences students. It is necessary to educate the students about the side effects and drawbacks of irresponsible selfmedication.
自我药疗在沙特阿拉伯的健康科学专业学生中是一种常见的做法。众所周知，不适当的自我药疗可能会对个人造成伤害，因为它会增加药物滥用的风险，或者通过掩盖某些症状而延迟就医。因此，我们研究的目的是调查和评估沙特阿拉伯利雅得健康科学专业学生对镇痛药自我药疗的做法、意识和态度。
这是一项以电子调查形式进行的横断面研究，于2016年在沙特阿拉伯利雅得不同大学的健康科学专业学生中开展。272名学生回答了问卷。电子问卷调查涵盖了人口统计学信息、自我药疗做法、镇痛药消费情况、对镇痛药自我药疗安全性的态度和意识。
除年龄外（P = 0.04），与自我药疗高流行率相关的因素并不显著。健康科学专业学生对镇痛药消费本身的安全性以及镇痛药与其他药物同时使用有足够的了解，不同学院之间存在显著差异；药学专业为80%，医学专业为71%，护理和牙科专业为61%，应用医学科学和预科专业学生为25%（p = 0.037）。
健康科学专业学生中自我药疗做法的发生率高得令人担忧。有必要对学生进行关于不负责任的自我药疗的副作用和弊端的教育。
