Self-medication in medical students in urban India: Exploring the extent of this dangerous practice.

Objectives: To assess the prevalence of self-medication in urban Indian medical students and explore possible factors associated with this practice. Methods: After obtaining institutional ethics approval, 180 medical students from six medical colleges in Mumbai were recruited to participate via social media. They were administered a pre-validated questionnaire that assessed self-medication as a practice, along with the perceived stress scale (PSS-10) online. Anonymity and confidentiality were maintained. Results: The prevalence of self-medication in medical students was found to be 83.9%, with no significant difference between genders or between academic years of medical education. The most used source of information for self-medicating was older prescriptions, and for procuring drugs was pharmacist stores. Common cold was the most cited indication. Anti-pyretics and anti-inflammatory drugs were the most commonly self-medicated drugs. It was found that 73.3% of medical students had self-medicated with non-over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. It was observed that 6.1% of medical students had experienced adverse drug reactions, and alarmingly, 0.6% of medical students continued self-medicating despite experiencing adverse drug reactions. Conclusions: Most of the study participants admitted to having practised self-medication. It was alarming to find that an appreciable fraction of the study population had uncontrolled access to non-OTC drugs. Thus, there needs to be a greater emphasis on the education of medical students with respect to the problems encountered by self-medicating and a need to enforce stricter regulations, as well as to establish a more watertight monitoring system, to curb this hazardous practice.