Self-medication Practice among Secondary School Students in Ekiti State, Southwest Nigeria

Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the practice of self-medication and the types of drugs students self-medicate as well as factors influencing practice of self-medication among secondary school students in Ekiti State, Southwest Nigeria.

Methods: The study employed a descriptive survey design using a combination of simple random and stratified sampling techniques to select 500 respondents to form the study group. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used to collect information from respondents within a period of six months. SPSS 17.0 was used to analyse the data. The research questions were answered using descriptive statistics of frequency and percentages. Inferential statistics of t test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to test the difference in the practice of self-medication between age groups and sex at 95% confidence level.

Results: The study revealed that 386 (80.4%) of the respondents do engage in the practise of self-medication. Also, analgesic 186 (38.8%) was the commonest of the types of drugs used in self-medication. On the reasons adduced for self-medication, the response “I know what to do always” has the highest response of 72 (15.0%) followed by “I know what to do sometimes” of 218 (45.5%). The t calculated 0.82 was lesser than t table value 1.96 at P=0.05 which denotes that there is no significant difference between male and female in the practice of self-medication. Also, at 2; 477 degree of freedom, f calculated of 3.54 was greater than f table value of 3.01 at P=0.05 which signifies a significant difference between age groups in the practice of self-medication.

Conclusion: The practice of self-medication was found to be prevalent among secondary school students. Also, analgesic was the commonest of the drugs being self-medicated and significant difference exists among the age groups in the practice of self-medication. It was recommended that, health educators should organize health campaigns and sensitization program in secondary schools to enlighten students on the health implication of self-medication.