Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10381

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Publication type: Journal Article

Altagracia MM, Kravzov JJ, Moreno SR, Rios CC, Vazquez ME.
Self-medication in rural and urban communities in the state of Guerrero, Mexico
Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Farmaceuticas 2003; 34:(2):27-35

Abstract:

In Mexico, self-medication should be considered as a public health problem; this is due to the scare drug information that has the population, and slack drug regulation system. This problem has been little studied, for what was carried out this study in rural and urban population of Guerrero’s State. The main objective of this work is to evaluate the consumption of medications and the level of self-medication of Rx. It was carried out by the aleatory sampling method obtaining a representative sample of 920 consumers in 92 pharmacies. It was found that, the self medication of Rx drugs is high, reaching 55% in the State of Guerrero and only a small proportion of the target population use or buy generic medications (1.42%). People that consume more medication belong to the feminine gender, and this group is also the one consumed in more proportion Rx drugs without prescription.