Conocimientos, actitudes y prácticas sobre automedicación con antibióticos en trabajadoras sexuales que acuden a la fundación Mujer Solidaridad. Cuenca 2017

Abstract

Antecedent: Self-medication with antibiotics is a public health problem worldwide, among the various risk groups stand out sex workers, prone to this practice, thus favoring bacterial resistance.

Objective: Determine the knowledge, attitudes, and practices on self-medication with antibiotics in the sex workers who come to the foundation "Mujer Solidaridad".

Methodology: A quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional study carried out with a population of 134 sex workers registered in the "Mujer Solidaridad" foundation of the City of Cuenca. The main variables analyzed were knowledge, attitudes and practices about self-medication with antibiotics. The data was obtained through a survey. Descriptive statistics was used by SPSS 20.0 for Windows, showing the results in frequency and percentage tables.

Results: The average age is 31.7 ± 8.82 years. Marital status prevails Free Union (47.8%), 51.5% have only completed primary school, 28.4% of respondents are from the Sierra. The most used group of antibiotics were the B-lactams. 83.6% consider self-medication little or nothing dangerous. Attitudes show that factors such as: lack of time, money, previous experience, known recommendations are negative determinants when it comes to self-medication. In terms of practice, only 2.2% of the population has never self-medicated.

Conclusions: Self-medication with antibiotics in sex workers proved to be an important problem due to low knowledge of bad attitudes and risky practices.