Perfil da automedicação em estudantes universitários: uma revisão de literatura

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Self-medication is the selection and use of over-the-counter medications in pharmacies and drugstores, without the guidance of a qualified health professional, in order to treat diseases and symptoms self-reported by the patient. It is a practice that has been growing in the world due to the easy access and obtaining of Non-Prescription Drugs (MIPs), in which the patient seeks to solve the symptoms immediately. Since self-medication is related to the patient's level of knowledge about the medication, it is common for university students, mainly in the health area, to resort to this practice, making frequent use of analgesics to treat pain in general. OBJECTIVE: To review the literature on self-medication among university students. METHOD: A literature review was carried out by consulting scientific articles published in national and international journals in the PUBMED, GOOGLE SCHOLAR and SCIELO databases. RESULTS: There were 298 scientific articles in the literature that mentioned self-medication. After reading the abstracts, 80 articles were analyzed and, at the end, 18 studies on the prevalence of self-medication among university students were included. The prevalence of self-medication varied between 33.7% and 96.5% of students. The average prevalence was 72.3%. CONCLUSION: Self-medication among university students proved to be a frequent practice, with a high prevalence rate, regardless of the country or the undergraduate course taken. The most reported clinical conditions that led to self-medication were coughs, colds, intestinal disorders, infections, allergies and pain in general, especially headaches.