Self-medication in Primary Dysmenorrhea among Undergraduate Students in a Medical College: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study.

Introduction: Primary dysmenorrhea is painful menstruation in women with normal pelvic anatomy, usually beginning during adolescence, primarily associated with a normal ovulatory cycle. There is an increased likelihood of self-medication among medical students. The aim of this study is to find out the prevalence of self-medication in primary dysmenorrhea among undergraduate students in a medical college. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in a medical college among undergraduate female students with primary dysmenorrhea from 1 February 2022 to 31 May 2022. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Committee of the same institute (Reference number: 254/2021). Convenience sampling was done. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire. Point estimate and 95% Confidence Interval were calculated. Results: Among 213 students with primary dysmenorrhea, self-medication was found to be in 78 (36.62%) (30.15-43.09, 95% Confidence Interval)). Among all the self-medications used, mefenamic acid was most common, used by 45 (57.69%) students, followed by paracetamol 11 (14.10%). Conclusions: The prevalence of self-medication practice in primary dysmenorrhea among undergraduate students was lower when compared to similar studies done in similar settings. Keywords: dysmenorrhea; menstruation; prevalence; self medication.

Study of Self-medication among First and Seventh Semester Medical and Dental Undergraduate Students of Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital in Nepal: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study.

INTRODUCTION: Although appropriate self-medication can ease minor illness and is time and costeffective, it can lead to irrational drug use and increased resistance, leading to prolonged morbidity. Inclined towards medical information and drug indices, medical students have an open arena for self-medication practice. This study was conducted to find the prevalence of self-medication among first and seventh semester medical and dental students in a tertiary care hospital. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among medical and dental undergraduates from July 2020 to August 2020 after receiving ethical clearance from the Institutional Review Committee of Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences (IRC Approval Number:35/20). A questionnaire was responded to by participants through a google form. Participants were enrolled through the convenience sampling method. Data were collected and entered in Microsoft Excel and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 25. RESULTS: Out of 199 respondents, the prevalence of self-medication was 100 (50.3%) (46.76-53.84 at 95% Confidence Interval). First semester medical 36 (73.5%) and dental undergraduates 24 (80%) had higher practice. Seventh-semester medical students 14 (51.9%) usually self-medicated within one day of onset of symptoms. Headache 47 (47%) was the most common indication. Analgesics 62 (62%) were most commonly used drugs procured most commonly from pharmacies 114 (57.3%). Dosage form was drug selection criteria for 120 (60.3%) students. CONCLUSIONS: Since self-medication is crammed with serious health hazards, proper exposure to the topic should be given to medical, dental students, and pharmacists. The implication of selfmedication into the pharmacology syllabus is a must.

Drug Prescription in the Department of Medicine of a Tertiary Care Hospital according to the World Health Organization/International Network for Rational Use of Drugs Core Indicators: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Survey.

INTRODUCTION: To establish appropriate health care services in developing countries, rationalization of drug use holds utmost importance. Drug use patterns can be found out using Core Indicators of the World Health Organisation in collaboration with the International Network of Rational Use of Drugs. With the help of the indicators, this study aimed to find out the way the drugs were prescribed in the Medicine out-patient department of a tertiary care hospital. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted from October 2019 to March 2020 in a tertiary care hospital. The ethical approval was taken from the Institutional Review Committee of the Dhulikhel hospital (reference number 198/19). Convenient sampling was done. After taking consent from the patient, data was collected from prescriptions written on the patient's card. The data were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Version 25. Descriptive statistics were applied and the results were expressed as frequency and percentage, mean and standard deviation. RESULTS: A total of 559 prescriptions were analysed, of which a total of 1427 medicines were found to be prescribed with an average number of medicines per the prescription of 2.55±1.388. Drugs prescribed by generic name were 820 (57.5%), antibiotics were 138 (9.7%) and injections were 8 (0.6%). Drugs prescribed from the Essential Drug List of Nepal was 939 (65.8%). CONCLUSIONS: Our study revealed that despite some results being up to the mark, there is a requisite for the proper regulation of prescribing and dispensing drugs in order to promote rationalisation.

Prevalence of Psychoactive Drug Use among Medical Students in a Medical College of Nepal.

INTRODUCTION: Psychoactive drug is a worrisome and emerging global problem. This is a disturbing matter, especially in the case of medical students, as it affects not only their health and academic performance alone but their clinical efficiency as well. This study aims to determine the prevalence of psychoactive drug use among medical students in a medical college in Nepal. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted after receiving ethical clearance from the Institutional Review Committee (Ref: 258/19) among undergraduate medical students from December 2019 to June 2020. Convenience sampling was used to collect data. Data analysis was done in the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Point estimate at 95% confidence interval was calculated along with frequency and proportion for binary data. RESULTS: The prevalence of psychoactive drug abuse was found to be 76 (44.2%) [CI= 43.6%â€"44.8%]. The study showed males 59 (59%) were more indulged in abuse than females 17 (23.6%). Alcohol 72 (41.86%) was the most commonly used, then was tobacco 24 (13.95%) followed by cannabis 17(9.88%). Only two students were sedative and opioid abusers. Pleasure 38 (31.70%) and experimentation 29 (24.20%) were the two major causes of substance abuse. Tobacco was used more frequently 14 (58.33%) used daily and found to have more financial and health-related issues in the last three months. CONCLUSIONS: Even almost half of the students were using some form of psychoactive drugs, the majority of them were occasional users. Proper counseling needs to be done to address this problem. Further study should be conducted to address the influencing factors and adverse outcomes.