Self-Medication in Ophthalmology in Pokhara Valley, Nepal

Self-medication is the use of medicinal products by the consumers to treat self recognized disorders or symptoms. Self-medication encourages self reliance for curative, preventive, promotive and rehabilitative care but self-medication for ophthalmic disorders may result in adverse drug interactions and decrease in visual outcome ultimately leading to blindness. A prospective cross-sectional descriptive survey of ophthalmic patients was done to assess their self-medication practice. Patients were interviewed and questionnaires were filled. Patients' demographic data, patients' self-medicating habit, drugs used for medication, ocular complains of patients, source of information, source of medicine and reasons for self-medication were noted down. More than one third of the patients were reported self-medicating in our study.

Autorentext

Completed Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Sciences from School of Health and Allied Sciences, Pokhara University and Higher Secondary Education from Gandaki Higher Secondary Boarding School, Pokhara, Nepal.