ABSTRACT

Self-medication is a common practice in both rural and urban settings, in old people with chronic illness and young people; Self-medication lends irrational drug use, drugs resistance, and severe disease development The study seeks to determine the factors contributing to self-medication among patients at outpatient department at Kabwohe Health Center IV. It was a cross sectional study using quantitative method of data collection. It was conducted at Kabwohe H C IV located in Sheema District in southwestern Uganda, The study involved patients attending OPD at Kabwohe H C IV. Simple random sampling was used to recruit patients into the study. Microsoft excel was used to analyze data and it was presented in form of frequency distribution tables, pie charts and bar graphs. The study involved 89 participants attending OPD at Kabwohe H C IV, majority of the participants (86.5%) were aged less than 35 years and females were slightly more than males. The reasons for self-medication included; non availability of doctors at the health facility as the main factor for self-medication (95%), knowledge of diagnosis (84%), lack of time (75%) and financial problems (74%). Selfmedication remains a challenge at Kabwohe H C IV. Patients should be health educated on the advantages and disadvantages of self-medication. The DHO Must strength policy implementation on the use of drugs to reduce the burden of irrational drug use that increase the cost of purchasing the wasted drugs, and increasing drug resistance. DHO, site in charges must conduct routine clinical audit on patient care to identify missed opportunity in care, develop action plan to address challenges in service delivery.