Knowledge and attitude of medical students toward self-medication.

Background: Self-medication is promoted in many countries for several reasons such as prevention of simple diseases and symptoms, provision of rapid treatment, simpler health system diseases, and reduction of doctor's examination fees in health funds. The aim of this study is to assess the knowledge and attitude of self-medication among medical students in Tikrit University.

Subject and material: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Tikrit University College of Medicine from December 15, 2017 to March 15, 2018. The sample consisted of 225 students, out of which 113 were males and 112 were females. Samples were selected in a stratified, random sampling design from all stages of the college. The data were collected using a questionnaire which was administered by interviewers and email.

Results: About 81.3% of the medical students who enrolled in the study used self-medications. The frequency of self-medication among the clinical stages was higher than the basic stages. Headache (92%) was the common reason for self-medication practice among people, followed by fever (64%) and common cold (58.6%), according to the opinion of the medical students. Doctors' advice was the main source of information that the students (64%) depended on, followed by advice from pharmacists (47.5%). Most of the respondents had poor knowledge (72.8%), but more than half of the students had a positive attitude (67.25%) toward self-medication.

Conclusion: Countless understudies were distinguished to rehearse self-medicine, and a large portion of the respondents had helpless information; however, they had a great demeanor about self-prescription. Commonness of self-medication drug increments as year of study increments. This might be because of expanded review openness to illnesses and prescriptions. Hence, it is unequivocally suggested for raising the issue of direction to edify the understudies about the issues that might emerge from unseemly drug use.