The Effect Of Self Medication Among Pregnant Women

This study was carried out to examine the effect of self medication among pregnant women in selected PHC in Mbaise.The study was carried out to determine the prevalence of self-medication among pregnant women, examine the factors that inform the practice of self-medication among pregnant women, ascertain the drugs that are most often used in self-medicating among pregnant women and investigate the level of awareness and knowledge of pregnant women about the possible side effects of self-medication.The survey design was adopted and the simple random sampling techniques were employed in this study.
The population size comprise of all the pregnant women in the selected PHC in Mbaise. In determining the sample size, the researcher conveniently selected 41 respondents and 35 were validated. Self-constructed and validated questionnaire was used for data collection. The collected and validated questionnaires were analyzed using frequency tables and mean scores. While the hypotheses were tested using chi-square statistical tool.
The result of the findings reveals that the prevalence of self-medication among pregnant women is high.The study also revealed that the factors that inform the practice of self-medication among pregnant women includes: socio-demographic factors, health facility related factors, nonprescribed drug related factors, psychological factors and cultural factors.Therefore, it is recommended that the Ministry of Health and the Nigeria Health Service, in collaboration with WHO must embark on an educational program to educate the public in general and pregnant women specifically of the dangers of self-medicating with herbal drugs, especially since they are perceived by users as safe, even though they can actually have detrimental effects on the pregnant mother and the foetus.To mention but a few.