Self-Medication Among Academicians in a Nigerian University: Are there Gender and Age Differences?

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the incidence of self-medication among University academicians and to determine whether there are age and sex differences.
Subjects and Methods: The population of the study was the academicians in the eleven faculties of University of Benin. A random sampling method was used to select the five faculties, which participated in the study. A stratified sampling method was used to select ten lecturers (five males and five females) from each participating faculty. A total of eighty lecturers participated in the study. The data was collected with the questionnaire titled Self-Medication Inventory (SMI). Experts in the field validated it. The questionnaire was tested on thirty respondents who were excluded from the main study. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation method was 0.76 and the final Spearman-Brown formula yielded 0.86, which showed that the instrument was reliable. The Z-test, ANOVA and common percentage wee the statistics used. Results: All respondents were found to indulge in self-medication with consequent adverse effects and there were no differences in gender or age.
Conclusion: Since most lecturers self-medicate irrespective of gender or age, it is recommended that programmes should be mounted in the universities, to enlighten all irrespective of gender or age on the dangers of this dangerous habits on self-medication.


Keywords: Self-Medication; Academicians; Nigerian University.

Journal of College of Medicine Vol. 13 (1) 2008: pp.29-33