Attached
Objectives:
The aim of the study was to identify the prevalence of self-medication of oral allopathic
medication among mothers of children less than 12 years in an urban area of Colombo and
factors associated.
Methods:
A descriptive cross sectional study was carried among 350 mothers who have children under 12
years of age who attend to Out Patient Department of Colombo South Teaching Hospital during
March to April 2014. Data was collected by an interviewer administered questionnaire and
analyzed using SPSS 15.0.
Results:
Majority (85.1%) was between 25-44 years and mean age of mother was 33.1± 6.707 SD.
Most of them (86.9%) are Sinhalese, 73.7% were only educated up to O/L s. 64% were
housewives. There were more female children (54%) and nearly half were between 1-4 years of
age. Majority (N= 331, 95%) self-medicated their children. 37.7 %( n=132) self-medicated their
children other than Paracetamol. Salbutamol, Amoxicillin, Chlorphineramine were among them.
There was a statistically significant association between mother's higher education level
(P=0.011), un-occupancy (P=0.005), father's higher education level (P =0.007), father's higher
occupational category (P= 0.02), older child (P=0.004) and high parity (P=0.033) with selfmedication. Significant proportion of mothers had obtained antibiotics from a pharmacy
w ithout prescription.
Conclusions:
Considerable proportion of mothers self-medicates their children in urban population. Risk of
misusing over the counter medication and obtain them without prescriptions were high. There is
significant health concerns regarding self-medication of children less than 12 years and both
parents and authorities should pay more attention.
