EFFECTIVENESS OF STRUCTURED TEACHING PROGRAM ON SELF-MEDICATION KNOWLEDGE AND ITS ADVERSE EFFECTS AMONG MIDDLE AGE ADULTS RESIDING IN LALITPUR, NEPAL

Introduction The World Health Organization stated self-medication involves the use of medicinal products by the consumer to treat self-recognized disorders or symptoms without prescribed by a physician. Self-medication is a worldwide public health issue and is more common in developing countries. Analgesics and cough syrups were Nepals most commonly used classes of drugs, which could be easily available over the counter.

Methods: A pre-experimental one-group pretest and post-test design was used to assess the effectiveness of the Structural Teaching Program (STP) on self-medication knowledge and its adverse effects. A nonprobability purposive sampling techniquewas used. The study included 120 middle-aged adults residing in Lalitpur, Nepal. A structured knowledge questionnaire were developed, translated into the local language, and distributed to respondents. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data.

Results: The mean pre-test knowledge score was 32.9% (SD 16.9%), the mean post-test knowledge score was 83.1% (9.5%), and the enhancement mean knowledge was 50.2% (SD 10.7%). When a pairedt-test was done, the obtained value of 36.34 was found to be significant at 0.05. There was a significant relationship between respondents pretest knowledge levels of self-medication and its adverse effects and socio-demographic variables such as age, religion, education, family income, occupation, and type of family, number of children, previous knowledge and source of information.

Conclusion: The respondentshad inadequate knowledge about self-medication and its adverse effects. The mean pre-test and post-test knowledge scores of respondents differed significantly. As a result, the study found that STP was effective.