Conocimientos, actitudes y practicas del uso de antibióticosen los estudiantes de la Escuela de Medicina y Bioquímica-Farmacia de la Universidad de Cuenca Período 2012-2013

Abstract

Objective: To determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices of antibiotic use among students in the School of Medicine and Biochemistry - Pharmacy of the University of Cuenca.

Methodology: Cross-sectional study of 230 college students: 182 medical students and 48 students of Biochemistry and Pharmacy; after informed consent underwent a survey with questions on demographic variables and about their knowledge, attitudes and practices of self-medication, the analysis was conducted in SPSS version 15, using relative frequencies and total percentages and comparisons between groups value Chi-square (X2) and p-value for statistical significance.

Results: The mean age 22.61 years ± 1.38 years, 40.4% of the population stated that self-medication is sometimes risky, 61.7% assumed that lack of time is the main cause for self-medication; in the comparison groups statistically significant difference was found in the following test components: knowledge about the usefulness of antibiotics in reference to the causative agents of infection (p = 0.00); level of knowledge about the impact on advertising self-medication (p = 0.003); with regard to practical significant differences in the type of antibiotic self-medicate both races students (p = 0.00) and presentation of self-medication side effects (p = 0.018) were found.

Conclusions: The frequency of self-medication in the population was 81.3% (70.9% occasionally and 10.4% often); being higher in medical students.