ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:To provide reference for developing effective interventions to self-medication and promoting reason-able self-medication. METHODS:Questionnaires were designed based on the modified Anderson's behavioral model of health ser-vices. By using cluster sampling,residents were randomly selected from 4 districts of Wuhan city to analyze the self-medication be-havior and its influential factors. RESULTS:Totally 204 questionnaires were sent and 199 were recovered with effective rate of 97.5%. The result showed 47.7% residents who perceived discomfort within 2 weeks medicated themselves,and the rate was high-er thansee the doctor. Among self-medication residents,the rate of mild disease,general and serious disease was separately 50.5%,46.3% and 3.2%. The length of illness<7 d and the length of illness ≥7 d accounted for 95.8% and 4.2%,separately. Cold and cough was the highest cost disease for self-medication. The reasons for selecting self-medication were:no need tosee the doctor(43.2%),trouble-saving(23.1%),high medical costs(14.6%),no time to see the doctor(14.6%). 54.1% residents acquired basic medication knowledge from the past experience,25.5% from other's recommendation,and the other from the inter-net,newspaper and magazines. As for the effect of self-medication in the past one year,75.4% residents considered most were ef-fective. 18.6%had suffered from ADR due to self-medication;the incidence of ADR in the residents reading the instruction was sig-nificantly lower than those not reading the instruction(P<0.05);the ratio of reading the instruction in residents with low education level was significantly lower than that with high education level(P<0.05). Single factor analysis showed that residents'choice of self-medication were significantly influenced by the marital status,education,monthly income,medicare,accessibility of medical institutions,the severity of disease and duration of illness(P<0.05). The proportion of self-medication for married group was sig-nificantly higher than unmarried group;the proportion of self-medication for low education level group was significantly higher than high education level group;the proportion of self-medication for low monthly income group was significantly higher than high monthly income group;the proportion of self-medication for group with business medical insurance or self payment was significant-close to medical institutions;the proportion of self-medication for mild disease group was significantly higher than serious disease group;the proportion of self-medication for length of disease≥7 d was significantly lower than length of disease<7 d. Results of multivariate analysis showed that severity of disease and length of disease were the important influential factors for the choice of self-medication(P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS:Self-medication is common in Wuhan city,and mainly for general and chronic dis-ease. Residents don't pay enough attention to reading the drug instructions. Self-medication is affected by various factors which has a certain health risks.