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. 2017 Sep 29;14(10):1152.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph14101152.

Antibiotic Self-Medication among Non-Medical University Students in Punjab, Pakistan: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Ali Hassan Gillani  1   2   3   4 , Wenjing Ji  5   6   7   8 , Waqar Hussain  9 , Ali Imran  10 , Jie Chang  11   12   13   14 , Caijun Yang  15   16   17   18 , Yu Fang  19   20   21   22
Affiliations

Antibiotic Self-Medication among Non-Medical University Students in Punjab, Pakistan: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Ali Hassan Gillani et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Antibiotic resistance is a global threat. Scarce knowledge about safe and appropriate antibiotic use is coupled with frequent self-administration, e.g., in China. This repeated self-medication poses potential risk in terms of antibiotic resistance. Low-resource countries are facing an elevated burden of antibiotic self-medication as compared to developed ones. Thus, this study focused on evaluating the pervasiveness of antibiotic self-medication in 3 universities of Southern Punjab, Pakistan. Methods: We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional survey in three government sector universities of Southern Punjab, Pakistan. The study was carried out with self-administered paper-based questionnaires. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 18.0 (IBM, Chicago, IL, USA). Results: Seven hundred twenty-seven students out of 750 (response rate 97%) with a mean age ± SD of 23.0 ± 3.4 years agreed to participate in the study. The proportion of females was slightly greater (52%) compared with males (48%), and almost one-third of the respondents (36%) were in their 2nd year of university. Out of the total, 58.3% practiced self-medication in the preceding six months, and 326 (45%) confirmed the use of antibiotics. Metronidazole was the most frequently self-medicated antibiotic (48%). Out of the total, 72% demonstrated awareness regarding the side effects of antibiotics. Diarrhea was the well-known adverse effect (38%). Forty-three percent affirmed having antibiotic resistance knowledge, and 30% knew that the irregular use of antibiotics would lead to increased antibiotic resistance. Conclusion: Despite having ample awareness of the adverse antibiotic reactions, self-medication among the university students was high and antibiotic resistance was a fairly unknown term.

Keywords: antibiotics; resistance; self-medication; side effect.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors disclose no conflict of interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Factors leading to the self-medication (SM) of antibiotics in non-medical students from universities.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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