Prevalence and conditioning factors of self-medication in nursing students at a university in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that more than half of the world’s medicines are prescribed, dispensed or administered inappropriately, and among the forms of incorrect use, self-medication stands out. Among university students, including health careers, self-medication has a high prevalence and has common factors that condition it. The present research aims to determine the prevalence and conditioning factors of self-medication in nursing students of a university in the Ecuadorian Amazon, through a quantitative research with a descriptive and cross-sectional approach, using a representative sample of 126 students from first to sixth cycle, selected by probabilistic method with the simple random sampling technique, to collect information a modified survey was used. The results showed that 100% of the students self-medicate, with the main motivation being lack of economic resources (92%), the main symptom being headache (54%) and the main drug used was paracetamol (54%).