Self-medication

Around 80 million Brazilians self-medicate, which is a natural and worrying practice among the population, due to the risks to their health. The survey was carried out among 82 professors from the Institute of Health Sciences, the Institute of Agrarian Sciences and the Institute of Natural, Human and Social Sciences at the Federal University of Mato Grosso. Self-medication is practiced among female teachers (51%) and graduates without any kind of specialization (42.6%). The main class of medication used in this practice was analgesics-antipyretics (95%) and the pathology or symptom that motivated self-medication was headache (80.5%). These drugs were self-indicated in 60% and motivated by knowledge acquired throughout life (33%). Of the main outcomes of self-medication, 78% achieved remission of the symptom that led to the practice. Therefore, since the teaching community is an opinion-forming community, one way of reducing the rates of self-medication would be to make them aware of the dangers of self-medication, so that this knowledge is replicated.