Prevalence of self-medication in children under-five years by their mothers in Yogyakarta city Indonesia.

BACKGROUND

The trend of combating minor ailments at home in children is a common practice in Indonesia. When it comes to very smaller children like those of age under-five.

AIMS: Consequences can be worse if not managed well. Self-medication among these children is not well studied in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY: In this study a questionnaire-based random survey among different areas of Yogyakarta city from the mothers bearing children if age under five. Questionnaire were validated by three experts, for reliability test a pilot study conducted on 10 mothers, after that questionnaire used for data collection. Data were analyzed by using SPSS Descriptive analysis to get frequency and percentage.

RESULTS

The overall prevalence reported is 58.82% (50/85). An increasing trend of self-medication was seen among high-higher secondary schools education mothers with 35.3%. In income factor 2600K-3000K mostly found in the self-medication. The residential area also seems influential upon this practice, i.e., 58.8% rural people depends on self-medication while urban people only 39.2% involved in self-medications.

CONCLUSION

As a large population of very small children is under this practice so, proper education of mothers especially in rural areas is needed for the appropriate use of medicines.