Self-Medication Practice and Associated Factors among Adult Household Members in Woliso Town, South West Shoa Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia

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.