Investigation of arbitrary drug use and factors influencing it in patients admitted to Shahid Rahimi Hospital, Khorramabad in 2021

Arbitrary use of drugs not only leads to failure to treat  the disease but also leads to drug complications, inconsistency of prevalence of diseases in the country with the amount of drug consumption and the problem of indiscriminate drug consumption in the pharmaceutical system of the country. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of investigating self-inflicted medication use factors influencing it among patients admitted to Shahid Rahimi Hospital, Khorramabad.

This study was conducted on 381 patients of Shahid Rahimi Hospital, Khorramabad in winter 2021. A simple random sample was drawn and the information of the individuals was collected using a questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the demographic information and a t-test was conducted using SPSS 23 software for comparisons.

According to the results of this study, the average age of people was 34.322±11.438 years. The percentage of arbitrary drug use was 25.3%. The percentage of self -administered medication was 56.8% for painkillers and 56.2% for multivitamins, 71.2% for cold and flu patients and 38% for chronic and acute headaches. The most important reasons for self-medication are, in this order, the higher quality of foreign medicines compared to Iranian medicines and the use of medicinal plants, and the least important reasons for self-medication are fear and shame of medical examinations, lack of trust in doctors' medicine, taking medicines during illness on the advice of acquaintances and the use of previous doctors' prescriptions were mentioned.

Given the high prevalence of self-inflicted drug use, it is suggested that various educational programs be implemented by appropriate organizations, including the Ministry of Health, Treatment and Medical Education, medical centers, and mass media to reduce the factors identified in this study.