A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE PREVALENCE OF SELF-MEDICATION AMONG NIGERIAN UNDERGRADUATES

The current study's objective was to investigate the prevalence of self-medication among university undergraduates and compare the practice of self-medication between school residents and home residents. Three hundred and twenty-six ( n =326) undergraduates pooled from three tertiary institutions in Nigeria participated in the study. The participants completed a self-report measure assessing their engagement in self-medication. The result showed that 64.4% of the participants had practiced self-medication, while 34.6% did not participate in self-medication. Also, an independent t-test analysis revealed that self-medication is prevalent among school residents.


ISSN: 2320-5407
Int. J. Adv. Res. 9(04), 455-459 456 Previous studies suggest that the practice of self-medication is common in developing countries ( . The behavior of prescribing drugs to one's self assumes a normal stance to most individuals. The trend is pervasive in Nigerian society to the extent that some mothers administer unprescribed medicine to their children, especially infants and under-five children (Salami & Adesanwo, 2015), and this action contributes to infant/child mortality in Nigeria. The common belief among some mothers is that babies often develop a fever. Consequently, this belief motivates the self-drug prescription attitudes of some women. Adolescents have been rated high in self-medication behaviors. Research indicates a high rate of adolescent participation in selfmedication in Nigeria (e.g.,Ojeleye, Oyeleye, & Ofi, 2016). The involvement of young people in the practice of selfmedication constitutes a significant health care challenge. This young person depends on their assessment of their health and the application of peer references to suggest prescription, probably due to self-esteem and other psychosocial variables. However, the present study is concerned with self-medication among students at the tertiary education level.
Over the years, several studies have been dedicated to investigating the prevalence, patterns, and determinants of self-medication among university students especially, in developing countries(see Hussain  .A common feature among the literature is that they implicated university students in self-medicating behaviors, suggesting that they are common among university students (Alves, Precioso, & Becona, 2020). For example, the trend has been widely explored in Nigerian universities. The findings confirm the widespread phenomenon among undergraduates. For instance, Osemene and Lamikanra (2012) found age, gender, and student's level in the university as factors influencing students' self-medication practices.
Similarly, research indicates that most Nigerian students attributed the cause of their self-medication practice to cost, prior knowledge about the illness andits treatment procedure, the mildness of the illness, previous self-medication outcome, and the attitude of health care practitioners (Idoko et al., 2018;. Additionally, Amusa, Badaki, and Sanusi (2015) revealed that university students engage in self-medication due to negative perception, while Ansam(2007) reported that university students engage in self-medicating behaviordue toscarcityof medical practitioners, cost, and knowledge about drugs. Equally, Khalid et al. (2019), Awosusi and Konwea (2015),and Fadare and Tamuno (2011) noted that amoxicillin, Ampicillin/Cloxacillin, Ciprofloxacin, malaria drugs, andpainkillerswere the most commonly over the counter drugs self-prescribed mainly by the students.

The present study
The incidence of self-medication has been well explored in various aspects, and literature indicates that the phenomenon is pervasive in tertiary institutions. The decline in seeking medical advice from professionals constitutes health risky behavior capable of compromising well-being and leading to psychological dysfunction. Also, a self-medicating attitude contributes to drug addiction observed among university students. This study's primary purpose is to investigate the student's residency as a variable capable of influencing a student's selfmedicating behavior. It is assumed that the students who reside in the hostels/lodge engage in self-medication compared to their counterparts who come from their homes. In this study, students who reside in the campus hostels, including those living in private lodges around the institutions, were classified as school residents. Students commuting from their homes were regarded as home residents. In other words, the present study is aimed to compare these groups of students in relation to self-medication behaviors. It is hypothesized that self-medication practice will be more pervasive among the school residents than their home residents' counterparts.

Method: -
The present study adopted cross-sectional survey design. The study population comprised students from three higher learning institutions in Nigeria (namely: Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Kogi State University, and the University of Nigeria). Three hundred and twenty-seven students comprising males and females (n=326), were randomly selected as participants for the study. The participants included the students who reside in the school hostels/lodges (school residents) and those who live with their parents/guardians (home residents).

457
Measure: -Self-medication was measured using a self-developed instrument following a review of relevant literature. The 10item Linkert type instrument is scored in a 5-point response format with high scores indicating self-medication practice. The reliability of the scale was ascertained following a pilot study. Observation of the Cronbach's alpha coefficients revealed acceptable levels of internal consistency reliabilities of the instrument, which exceeded the cutoff rules-of-the thumb of .70 as recommended for study purposes (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 2013).  .000 A t-test analysis was conducted to compare any significant difference between the school residents and the home residents on the practice of self-medication. There was a significant difference in the scores for school residents (M= 0.83, SD= 0.38), and home residents (M= 0.39, SD= 0.49. t (324) = 8.869, p= .000. Meaning that students who reside in the institution's hostel or lodges within the institution practice self-medication more than their counterpart that comes from their home.

Discussion: -
The current study focused on investigating the prevalence of self-medication among university undergraduates and comparing self-medication between students who live in the school hostels or stay in a rented lodge around the school the students who come to class from their respective homes. Firstly, the result found that most of the participants have practiced or still practicing self-medication. This finding appears to be in line with previous literature , suggesting that the practice of self-medication is persistent among university undergraduates in Nigeria. As such, it could be said that undergraduates are more exposed to the dangers of non-prescribed drugs.
As expected, the t-test conducted to determine the difference between the school residents and the home residents on the practice of self-medication showed that self-medication is prevalent among the school residents and in the hypothesized directions. The finding suggests that staying in a school hostelor the lodge as a student increases the chance of engaging in self-medication. Whereas, staying with parents/ guardians while been a university student seems not to favor self-medication. This probable cause of the high rate of self-medication among the school residents could be attributed to the findings of , which posits that the prevalence of medicine storage in students' roomsleads to the practice of self-medication. Indeed, having leftover drugs, probably remains of the previous prescription, could motivate a person to continue with the drugs in response to health symptoms.
Nevertheless, the onset of symptoms requires a medical test or expert consultation and not the other way round. However, students who have had a successful cure following a self-medication practice are mainly preoccupied with assessing symptoms and possible over-the-counter drugs. In the absence of parents/guardians, school residents take absolute control of treatment, especially when the illness is perceived as mild.

Limitations, strengths, and future directions
This study encountered a particular limitation that needed to be reported. For instance, data for the research was collected based on only self-report measures, thereby raisingthe issue of common method variance. This study contributes to the literature by extending the risk factors associated with the prevalence of self-medication to school 458 residence. The study alsoadds to the area of health psychology by providing further support to the idea that selfmedication is prevalent among university undergraduates. Besides, to our knowledge, this is the firststudy that has attempted to synthesize the gap between school residents and home residents in relation to self-medication practice in Nigeria's university context. Future researchers are encouraged to utilize data from other sources such as the students' friends, family relations, and neighbors.

Conclusion:-
This study is meant to study the prevalence of self-medication among university undergraduates and to determine whether there is a difference between school residents and home residents relating to the practice of self-medication. Indeed, the results support the existing literature,which suggests that self-medication is persistent among university students, thus broadening our understanding of the difference between school residents and home residents relating to self-medication. However, the current study recommends that futureresearch investigate other possible influencing variables, such as health beliefs, health self-efficacy, in a more representative sample of university undergraduates andnon-educated youth.

Ethical considerations
The researchers tried to abide by every ethical standard in the process of the study. The participants were fully aware of the study's purpose, and their involvement was made voluntary. Most importantly, their personal information was never requested.

Funding
The study was funded by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TetFund)

Informed consent
The research participants were informed of the study's purpose and were advised to withdraw from the study whenever they wish to, no matter the level of the study since the participation was voluntary.