scholarly journals HEALTH SEEKING BEHAVIOR TOWARDS MINOR AILMENTS AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN MALAYSIA

Author(s):  
LI-YING TAN ◽  
SIEW SIANG CHUA

Objective: This study was conducted to identify the types of minor ailments encountered by university students in Malaysia and the action taken in response to these ailments. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on undergraduate students from the various faculties in a major private and a public university in Malaysia. A researcher stationed at different areas of the universities to recruit respondents. If the student agreed to participate, he/she would sign a consent form and then self-filled a structured questionnaire. Results: Of the 856 respondents included in this study, 68.6% were female and 60.6% rated their health status as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. During the one month period prior to the study, 87.4% of the respondents encountered at least one minor ailment. The five most common minor ailments encountered were headache (58.1%), common cold (42.8%), sore throat (42.6%), cough (40.3%) and back pain (27.6%). The main actions taken were rest at home and self-medication. The most common drug used for the treatment of minor ailments was paracetamol (49% of the respondents). Other drugs were used by less than 10% of the respondents. The main source of information was from parents (63.7%), followed by doctors (59.9%), internet (57.9%), pharmacists (33.9%) and friends (33.5%). Conclusion: Headache is more common among university students compared to the general population. Further studies are required to understand the cause of headache among this population.

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 633-639
Author(s):  
Bernard Baltazary Chuwa ◽  
Linna Abraham Njau ◽  
Kaizali Ivo Msigwa ◽  
Elichilia Shao

Background: Self medication is a common practice of using medicines without a medical supervision by the people them- selves. Self medication is likely to happen when people feel unwell, it is worse in the population with poor helth seeking be- havior. Therefore it is important to assess the prevalence and factors associated with self medication with antibiotics among University students in Moshi, Kilimanjaro Tanzania. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted from April-August 2019 at two Universities in Moshi, including one med- ical and one non medical. The study population were undergraduate students aged 18 and above, A self-filled questionnaire was used for data collection and data analyzed using the SPSS version 16 and association was tested using chi square. Results: Out 374 students enrolled 187 from each University, 126 were female and 248 were male with age ranging from 19 to 35 years with mean age of 23.91 years. The prevalence of self medication with antibiotics was 57% and the most com- mon used antibiotics was amoxicillin with prevalence of 32.08%. The common reported symptoms/diseases were headache (31.02%) followed by malaria and coughing with prevalence of 15.24% and 10.96% respectively. The commonest reasons of self medication reported to be emergency illness (38.77%) and delaying of hospital services (24.33%). The commonest effects reported among respondents which practiced self medication with antibiotics were worsening of the condition that they were suffering in (4.55%) and body rashes (2.67).There was no significant difference between self medication practices among medical and non medical students(p = 0.676). Conclusion: The prevalence of self medication with antibiotics was high among University students and there is no signif- icant difference in both medical and non medical students. The most feared outcome on self medication with antibiotics is antibiotic drug resistance which leads to treatment failure along with high financial costs and increase mortality rate following microbial infections. Keywords: Self-medication; antibiotics; University students; Moshi; Tanzania.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 36-39
Author(s):  
Sami Abdulrahman Alhamidi ◽  
◽  
Seham Mansour Alyousef ◽  

This study aimed to assess the caffeine consumption of Saudi Arabian undergraduate students and to determine if the average amount consumed is within healthful parameters. Caffeine consumption in Saudi Arabia is a major cultural and social feature. Consumption of excessive amounts of caffeine can be deleterious to the health of university students. This is a cross-sectional study. A total of 145 male undergraduate nursing students were surveyed using the Caffeine Consumption Questionnaire to assess their caffeine intake on a typical day. Among this group, 34.5% of students exceeded the 400mg daily safe levels for caffeine consumption. The average consumption of the total group, those consuming below 400mg and those exceeding 400mg were 325.1, 201.2, and 570.1 mg, respectively. Tea and coffee were the major contributors to total caffeine intake ranging from 0-8 (240ml) servings per day. Health promotion aimed at illuminating health risks of caffeine consumption exceeding safe limits may assist in modification of intake to more healthful levels.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samman Chughtai

Self-medication is a common incidence in the world today. This study aims to evaluate self-medication among university students of Multan, Pakistan. This randomized cross sectional study was carried out in Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan during December 2015- January 216. A sample size of 200 students was randomly selected. Response rate was 90% (n=182).The prevalence of self-medication among the students was determined to be 83%. There was difference in perception of pharmacy students and students of other professions. Most common condition in which students did self-medication was headache (49.66%; n=75). Students also showed tendency of self-medication in case of herbal and essential oil products (46.35%). Awareness concerning insecurity and benefits of self-medication must be spread among students to avoid the complications of self-medication. 


Author(s):  
Sanghamitra Ray ◽  
Rajesh Kumar Meena ◽  
Hariom Kumar Solanki ◽  
Prakash Chand Jain

Background: India has a high burden of under five mortality. Faulty feeding practices and mortality due to vaccine preventable diseases is a major hurdle. Objective was to assess breast feeding practices and vaccination status of children of less than 5 years by age and its correlation with socio-demographic profile.Methods: This was a cross- sectional descriptive study involving children of nine months to five years.Results: Health seeking behavior in terms of adequate antenatal checkup and institutional deliveries was quite high; but only one third of children had early initiation of breast feeding and the main reason was delay in rooming-in. Early breast feeding had significant correlation with the greater duration of breast feeding and the duration of exclusive breast feeding was significantly associated with the literacy status of mother. Only 34% of children were vaccinated on time and frequent migration was the cause of delay in 25%. Ground level workers were the main source of information regarding vaccination in this study population.Conclusions: Feeding practices were not satisfactory. Institutional fallacies also came into focus such as delayed rooming-in. Awareness regarding vaccination was inadequate and was incomplete in majority of children. General awareness and health seeking behavior of our community still need enhancement to a great extent.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. e0008334
Author(s):  
Gabriel Alcoba ◽  
Manon Chabloz ◽  
Justin Eyong ◽  
Franck Wanda ◽  
Carlos Ochoa ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Sampson Oluchi ◽  
Rosliza Manaf ◽  
Suriani Ismail ◽  
Theophilus Udeani

Fever is one of the most common symptoms of pediatric illnesses; it is an important early symptom of malaria. Fever had served as the entry point for presumptive treatment of malaria among children in Nigerian. Appropriate HSB is important when seeking treatment for fever among under-five children; this will help for better prognosis because treatment will be initiated early. This study attempted to identify caregiver’s HSB for under-five children with fever. A cross-sectional study was conducted in Imo-State, Nigeria. Appropriate HSB was operationally defined as seeking treatment from health facility within 24 h of fever. Data were obtained using pretested self-administered questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 22. Simple and multiple logistic regression were used to determine predictors of appropriate HSB. A total of 559 eligible respondents were recruited; 103 (18.6%) caregivers had appropriate HSB. The predictors of HSB are being male child (aOR = 2.760; 95% CI:1.536–4.958), the age of child younger than 27 months (aOR = 2.804; 95% CI:1.485–5.295), employed caregivers (aOR = 1.882; 95% CI:1.014–3.493), number of household members (aOR = 2.504; 95% CI:1.464–4.283), and caregivers who decided to seek treatment at early stage (aOR = 7.060; 95% CI:1.616–30.852). Only 18.6% caregivers practiced appropriate HSB for fever cases among under-five children. It is essential to educate caregivers and emphasise on early treatment of fever and appropriate use of health facilities for fever. The findings will be used to improve intervention at the community level and will be compared with follow-up data to evaluate their effectiveness.


2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1249-1255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdelmoneim I Awad ◽  
Idris B Eltayeb

Background: In many developing countries, up to 60–80% of health problems are self-medicated. Objective: To estimate the prevalence of self-medication with antibiotics and/or antimalarials and identify factors promoting such use among university students in Sudan. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was performed, using a pretested questionnaire on a sample of 1300 students selected from 5 universities in Khartoum State, Sudan. Results: Eight hundred ninety-one (79.5%; 95% CI 77.0 to 81.8) students from the study population had used antibiotics or antimalarials without a prescription within 1–2 months prior to the study. Four hundred ninety (55%; 95% CI 51.7 to 58.3) of the respondents stated that they had used antibiotics, 39 (4.4%; 95% CI 3.2 to 6.0) had used antimalarials, and 362 (40.6%; 95% CI 37.4 to 43.9) had used both. Overall, self-medication with antibiotics or antimalarials was significantly more common among students 21 years of age or older compared with those 20 years of age or younger (OR 1.55; 95% CI 1.15 to 2.09; p = 0.004) and among students attending private universities compared with those attending public universities (OR 1.42; 95% CI 1.04 to 1.95; p = 0.028). Self-medication with antibiotics followed a simitar pattern, which was significantly more common among students 21 years of age or older (OR 1.36; 95% CI 1.03 to 1.81; p = 0.03) and private university respondents (OR 1.52; 95% CI 1.15 to 2.02; p = 0.003). Self-medication with antimalarials was found to be significantly less common among females (OR 0.76; 95% CI 0.59 to 0.97; p = 0.028) and higher among the 21 years or older age group (OR 1.84; 95% CI 1.42 to 2.40; p < 0.001), The most common reason indicated for self-medication was the respondents’ previous experiences with similar ailments. The main source of drugs was community pharmacies. Conclusions: The prevalence of self-medication with antibiotics/antimalarials among undergraduate university students in Khartoum State is high. Our findings highlight the need for planning interventions to promote the judicious use of antibiotics/antimicrobials.


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