Abstract:
Background: Self-medication is described as the act of patients or individuals utilizing
pharmaceuticals on their own initiative to cure self-diagnosed diseases or symptoms. It's a behavior
in which a person tries to solve a health condition without seeking expert help or advice. Currently
problem of self-medication like drug resistance, drug side effects, wastage of resources, and serious
health hazards including death become an issue.
Objective: To determine prevalence of Self-Medication and its associated factors among adult
population of woliso town Oromia, Ethiopia, 2023.
Method: A Community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 626 adult population of
Woliso Town from January to February, 2023.A multi stage sampling method was used and data
were collected with an interview administrated structured questionnaire. Data was entered to epi info
statistical software version 7 and exported to SPSS version 21.0 for analysis.Bivariable logistic
regression was used to identify candidate variable at p-value 0.25. Multivariable binary logistic
regression model was fitted and its goodness of fit was tested with hosmer and lemshow test.
Adjusted odd ratio its 95% CI was reported for those variable found to be significant at p-value 0.05.
Result: The Prevalence of self-medication practice in adult population of woliso town was found to
be 430(70.8%) with (95%CI: =67.18%, 74.4 %.).According to the multivariable logistic regression
analysis, being female (AOR:=3.72,95% CI=1.98, 6.92) ,previous experience of self-medication
practice (AOR=4.54, 95%CI:=2.96, 8.80),respondents who had an experience of keeping
medication at home (AOR:=5.19,95%CI=3.14,8.59),poor knowledge(AOR:=5.82, 95%CI=3.41,
9.91) and good attitude (AOR=3.93, 95%CI=2.72, 6.79) were factors associated with Self Medication Practice.
Conclusion: This study identified that there is high prevalence of self-medication practice in woliso
town. Gender, previous experiences of Self-Medication, keeping medication at home, knowledge
and attitude were factors associated with Self-Medication practice. The finding of this study implies
that woliso town community’s need more awareness regarding SM.
