Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Awareness of rational medication use and antibiotic self-medication practices among undergraduate students in a university in Sri Lanka

Chaminie B Gunawardhana¹ , MHF Sakeena¹, C Sivayoganthan²

¹Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences; ²Department of Agriculture Extension, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

For correspondence:- Chaminie Gunawardhana Email: chamini101@yahoo.com Tel:+94759673266

Received: 15 May 2014 Accepted: 27 February 2015 Published: 26 April 2015

Citation: Gunawardhana CB, Sakeena M, Sivayoganthan C. Awareness of rational medication use and antibiotic self-medication practices among undergraduate students in a university in Sri Lanka. Trop J Pharm Res 2015; 14(4):723-729 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v14i4.23

© 2015 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the practice of self-medication and evaluate the knowledge of rational use of antibiotics among undergraduate students of University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

Method: A cross-sectional, recall study was conducted among the university student population who practice self-medication in the study location. Stratified, random sampling technique was used to distribute 246 questionnaires in eight faculties of the institution. The response rate was 71%, and 175 completed questionnaires were analyzed to determine significant differences and correlation with different variables.

Results: A majority of the study sample were females (54%), aged 23 - 25 years (46.9%). The most frequently used antibiotic was amoxicillin (95.4%). Common cold with fever was the disease condition treated by a large majority (84.9%). Knowledge on dose, frequency, duration and side-effects of antibiotics among students was moderate, with a mean value of 58.3%. There was a significant difference in knowledge on antibiotics between health science and non-health science students although no significant difference was observed in knowledge with respect to gender, academic year and family income.

Conclusion: Antibiotic consumption was associated with students’ academic background. This study highlights the need for interventions to assure rational use of antibiotics.

Keywords: Antibiotics, Self-medication, Rational use, Undergraduate students, Awareness