Abstract: In episodes of most of the illnesses, self-medication is the first option, which makes self-medication a common practice throughout the world. Among the self-medicated drugs, Peracetamol is considered to be a well established and widely used drug as a leading non-prescription antipyretic and analgesic. It is also considered as one of the most frequently used drugs in intentional overdoses. Objectives: The purpose of the present study was to assess the perception towards the appropriate use of Paracetamol among the residents of Al Ahsa city of Saudi Arabia. METHODS: The study is a cross sectional survey conducted from the community of Al Ahsa during September 2015 through the self- administered questionnaire developed by Delphi technique. The questionnaire translated into Arabic. Data was then entered in SPSS version 20.0 for analysis and chi-square test was applied for the analysis. P-value <0.05 was considered as significant. RESULTS: The results depicted that mean age of the population was 25.9 years (±0.98 SD) and there were 480 male (46%) and 557 female (54%). The overall awareness among community was very low. The educational level, age, marital status and gender do not show any association (>0.05) towards most of the questions. However, the awareness had shown significant association (<0.05) with educational level only. CONCLUSION: The overall awareness for appropriate use and adverse effect of paracetamol was low among the participants; therefore, the community needs awareness campaign to reducing adverse effect.
Keywords: paracetamol – Perception – public Health.
Title: Perception towards Appropriate Use and Adverse Effects of Paracetamol among the Residents of Al Ahsa
Author: Sayed Ibrahim Ali, Rabel Khawaja, AbdulSattar Khan, Abdulaziz Al shamarany, Ammar Muhammed Almulhim, Naif Al mulhim
International Journal of Healthcare Sciences
ISSN 2348-5728 (Online)
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