Self-medication in a Portuguese urban population: a prevalence study

Purpose To determine the prevalence of self‐medication in a Portuguese urban population. To assess the feasibility of performing these studies in community pharmacies. Methods A cross‐sectional study was chosen to collect information about demography, use of health services and drug utilization in a sample of pharmacy user‐purchasers in a pre‐determined period of time. Results The proportion of pharmacies which participated in the study was 18.3% (11 from 60 invited) in Lisbon and 37.5% (15 of 40 invited) in Porto. Among the 3312 selected patients, only 2.6% (n = 114) refused to participate. The prevalence of self‐medication was found to be 26.2%. The distribution of self‐medication by gender was 28.4% for males and 25.2% for females. Use of self‐medication was statistically significantly higher (p