Prevalence and associated factors with analgesic self- medication among the elderly patients attending the Out-patient Department Mulago National Referral hospital.

Abstract

There is a high prevalence of analgesic self-medication in Uganda although there is sparse data about the prevalence of analgesic self-medication in the elderly, the high practice predisposes the respondents to serious drug interactions, GIT side effects and masking of serious illnesses. The general objectives of this study are to determine the prevalence and associated factors of analgesic self-medication among the elderly patients attending the Out Patient Department of Mulago National Referral Hospital. The study design employed in this finding was a cross sectional study involving quantitative data collection methods with a questionnaire having both open and closed ended questions .The sample size was 114 respondents who were the elderly above 60 years attending OPD at MNRH. The sampling method was the convenience sampling method by interviewing the respondents using the questionnaires. The Data was coded and entered into the Epi data software, then exported to SPSS version 18 for Analysis and then presented on the graphs and tables. The results obtained showed that of the total 114 elderly respondents sampled, a total of 110 were practicing self-medication with analgesics. Most respondents were female, married with a highest level of education as secondary. It was concluded that there was a high prevalence of analgesic self-medication among the elderly patients attending OPD at MNRH (96.5%).The major analgesics used were paracetamol, diclofenac and ibuprofen .The major factors associated with analgesic self-medication were chronic diseases, muscle pains and previous medication prescriptions.