| dc.description.abstract | Upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs)
are one of the most commonly encountered diseases
in both paediatric and adult populations and they
represent a significant cause of antibiotic abuse
which contributes to antibiotic resistance. This study
mainly aimed to evaluate the medication practices of
URTIs among undergraduates at the University of
Jaffna. A descriptive cross-sectional study was
conducted among 382 undergraduates of University
of Jaffna from July 2019 to November 2020. Stratified
random sampling was performed to recruit the
participants and the data were collected using a selfadministered
questionnaire and analysed using SPSS
version 23. The response rate was 82.1% (n=314) for
this survey. The majority of the respondents were
female (64.0%) and unmarried (97.1%). Almost
45.0% of participants had URTIs at least once in the
last three months and the common cold was the most
frequently reported URTI symptom. Most of the
students had antipyretics (74.8%), Vitamin C
(73.8%), herbal remedies (72.0%), antibiotics
(63.7%), cough syrups (55.0%) and antihistamines
(54.4%) to treat their URTIs. A considerable number
of students, 42.0% had self-medicated with
antibiotics. Compared to Health Science students,
Non- Health Science students significantly shared
their antibiotics with friends or family members
(p<0.05) and kept leftover antibiotics to be used in
similar disease conditions in the future (p< 0.05).This
study concluded that majority of the undergraduates
at the University of Jaffna had inappropriate
antibiotic usage in URTIs and it suggested that
educational programs should be designed to educate
undergraduates irrespective of course of study
regarding rational usage of antibiotics. | en_US |
