Demographic, socio-economic and other associated risk factors for self-medication behaviour among university students of Sri Lanka: a cross sectional study

Table 2 Knowledge of the study population on medical drugs and Self-Medication

Parameter		Total respondents
Parameter		n	%
Familiarity with the classification of OTC	Yes	264	37.7
Familiarity with the classification of OTC	No	436	62.3
Do you know what antibiotics are?	Yes	602	86.0
Do you know what antibiotics are?	No	98	14.0
Antibiotics are used for?	Virus infections	313	44.7
	Bacterial infections	384	54.9
	Other	3	0.4
Risks associated with Self-Medication are?	Risk of using wrong drugs	347	49.6
	Lack of knowledge about medicines	448	64.0
	Risk of having adverse effects	423	60.4
	Risk of misdiagnosing	376	53.7
	Administrating medications wrongly	260	27.1
	Risk of drug dependence	170	24.3
	Other	10	1.4
Which of the following statement(s) about antibiotics is (are) correct?	Higher doses always result fast recovery	245	35.0
	Low doses can always result less adverse conditions	154	22.0
	Switching drugs always enhance drug effect	52	7.4
	Switching drugs always reduce adverse reactions	40	5.7
	A prior knowledge on the mechanism of drugs is necessary before initiating self-medication practices	539	77.0
	Medication can be stopped when basic symptoms fade away	147	21.0
Can humans become resistant to antibiotics?	Yes	461	65.9
Can humans become resistant to antibiotics?	No	239	34.1
Can Self-Medication cause side effects?	Yes	535	76.4
Can Self-Medication cause side effects?	No	165	23.6
Do you know the chemical composition of the drugs that you are using?	Yes	64	9.1
	No	636	90.9
Level of understanding of the instructions used for Self-Medication	Fully understood	184	26.3
	Partially understood	383	54.7
	Did not understand	133	19.0

ISSN: 1471-2458