Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Prevalence of self-medication of psychoactive stimulants and antidepressants among undergraduate pharmacy students in twelve Pakistani cities

Atta Abbas¹ , Farrukh Rafiq Ahmed², Raafia Yousuf^1,4, Nabeel Khan¹, Zeb-un-Nisa .², Syed Imran Ali², Mehwish Rizvi², Arif Sabah¹, Sidra Tanwir²

¹Department of Pharmacy, Health and Wellbeing, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sunderland, England, United Kingdom; ²Faculty of Pharmacy, Ziauddin University, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.

For correspondence:- Atta Abbas Email: bg33bd@student.sunderland.ac.uk Tel:+447438866150

Received: 11 June 2014 Accepted: 12 January 2015 Published: 31 March 2015

Citation: Abbas A, Ahmed FR, Yousuf R, Khan N, . Z, Ali SI, et al. Prevalence of self-medication of psychoactive stimulants and antidepressants among undergraduate pharmacy students in twelve Pakistani cities. Trop J Pharm Res 2015; 14(3):527-532 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v14i3.23

© 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 prevalence of self-medication of psychoactive stimulants and antidepressants among pharmacy students of Pakistan.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey on self-medication of psychoactive stimulants and antidepressants among pharmacy students was conducted with a structured and validated questionnaire distributed to a total of 2981 final year undergraduate pharmacy students in 12 major Pakistani cities (Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Dera Ismail Khan, Abbottabad, Bahawalpur, Hyderabad, Faisalabad, Multan and Peshawar) of Pakistan. Out of this, 2516 (718 male and 1798 female) students completed and returned the questionnaire.

Results: Prevalence of self-medication of psychoactive stimulants was 1.31 (1.13 – 1.75 for 95% CI) and antidepressants was 8.34 (8.03 – 8.85 for 95% CI). A majority of the students (63 %) identified academic competition as a driving force for indulging in self-medication of psychoactive stimulants while nearly all the students (96 %)admitted using antidepressants to obtain relief from the pressure of studies (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: Pakistani pharmacy students, despite being aware of the hazards of psychoactive stimulants, indulge in self-medication. Prevalence of self-medication with antidepressants is very high among the students due to the pressure of studies. Primarily, academic competition is the major driving force for the use of psychoactive stimulants.

Keywords: Self-medication, Psychoactive stimulants, Antidepressants, Pharmacy students, Academic pressure