Psycho-social factors influencing the involvement in self medication and the perceived health implications among students of a tertiary institution in Anambra state, Nigeria

Self medication is the use of medication for self treatment without consulting a physician either for diagnosis, prescription or surveillance of treatment. This study is a descriptive study that determined the psychosocial factors that influence the involvement in self medication and the perceived health implications among students of College of Health Sciences of Tertiary Institution in Anambra State, Nigeria. Structured questionnaire developed by the researchers which was validated and pilot-tested for internal consistency using Cronbach’s Alpha with reliability index of 0.839, was used for data collection. Data were collected from the three academic faculties in the College with 340 respondents. Descriptive and inferential statistics analyses were applied in data analysis using SPSS version 21. Study revealed that psychological factors influence the students’ involvement in self medication. Such factors include but not limited to: need for quick relief from pain (78.5%), bad experiences with health personnel (71 .5%) and previous experiences with symptoms of disease (66.2%). The socio-economic factors such as high cost of medical consultation (77.9%) and peer influence (68.5%). The students also showed positive perception of the health implications of self medication with average mean score of 3.08. Study also revealed that is correlation between socio-economic and psychological factors in self medication practices (Rho- 0.721,p< 0.001) and perceived health implications of self medication is correlated to psychological factors.