Self-medication practices among pregnant women in Ethiopia.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Girmaw, Fentaw Sendekie, Ashenafi Kibret Mesfin, Betelhem Kassaw, Abebe Tarekegn
Abstract	BackgroundSelf-medication is a worldwide issue that requires special attention due to the potentially harmful effects it can have not only on pregnant women but also on the fetus.ObjectivesThis study assessed the magnitude of self-medication practice and associated factors among pregnant women following antenatal care (ANC) in primary healthcare settings in the North Wollo Zone of Ethiopia.MethodsAn institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 395 pregnant mothers who attended ANC follow-up in selected health centers in the North Wollo Zone of Ethiopia from April 20 to May 20, 2021. A multi-stage sampling method was employed to enroll participants. A face-to-face structured interview was conducted to collect the data. A logistic regression analysis was used to determine the factors associated with self-medication practice. A p value < 0.05 at the 95% confidence level was considered statistically significant.ResultsOut of a total of 444 participants approached, 395 (89%) participated in the study. Of these, 44.6% reported practicing self-medication during the current pregnancy. Age < 35 (AOR = 2.18, 95% CI 1.02–9.15; p = 0.032), rural residence (AOR = 3.01, 95% CI 1.43–10.19; p = 0.017), and previous medication use (AOR = 5.02, 95% CI 1.24–12.93; p = 0.015) were found to have a significant association with self-medication practice.ConclusionSelf-medication was highly prevalent among pregnant women in the study setting and result indicates need for critical action. Younger rural women with a history of self-medication use should be provided counselling to find a prescription medication, and measures are needed to minimize self-medication related harm in pregnant women.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40545-023-00584-7.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC10278325&blobtype=pdf
Journal	Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice [J Pharm Policy Pract]
Volume Number	16
DOI	10.1186/s40545-023-00584-7
PubMed Central reference number	PMC10278325
Issue Number	1
PubMed reference number	37337251
e-ISSN	20523211
Language	English
Publisher	BioMed Central
Publisher Date	2023-06-19
Publisher Place	London
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. © The Author(s) 2023
Subject Keyword	Self-medication Pregnant women Self-medication practice Ethiopia
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Health Policy Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics Pharmacy