Avaliação da automedicação em universitários dos cursos da saúde e engenharia da Universidade de Santa Cruz do Sul.

Abstract

The medication is a helper in promoting the health of people, but when not used correctly or without the advice and guidance of a health professional can become harmful to the individual, since its adverse effects and possible interactions are not usually known by the users. In Brazil there is a growing commercialization of drugs and most cases are associated with self-medication. The objective of this study was to compare the level of self-medication in health and engineering courses, to identify if the training area influences this practice, as well as the semester of the student. The work methodology consisted of a transversal analytical study where 217 university students from the engineering and health areas were interviewed through a self-administered questionnaire with open and closed questions about self-medication. After analyzing the data of 217 participants, there was a higher prevalence of females 63.6%, single marital status 78.8%, age above 21 years 65.3% and 70% above the 5th semester. Regarding self-medication, it was concluded that there was a high index (79.8%) in the two research areas, health and engineering. Differently from what was found in other studies that the health student would be more likely to self-medicate, it was not confirmed in this study, since, independently of the training area, the students self-medicated practically the same proportion, and there was no significant difference between the areas. It was investigated the relation of the semester in which the student was studying the prevalence of self-medication, but the result showed that the semester has no influence on this practice. Therefore, it can be concluded that although they were distinct training areas, it was not decisive in the question of self-medication.