Abstract:

This research was conducted to determine the status of over-the-counter drug use and attitudes towards rational drug use in mothers with 0-12 years old children. The study population consisted of mothers of children aged 0-12 years who were admitted for any reason to the Pediatric Outpatient Clinic of a University Hospital in western Turkey. The study was conducted with 375 mothers. "Introductory Information Form" and "Parental Attitude Scale towards Rational Drug Use" were used for the data collection. Data were evaluation with Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis test. The mean age of mothers included in the study was 33.14±6.10 years. Of the mothers, 43.5% (n=163) was a high school graduate. It was found that 43.5% of the mothers (n=163) used over-the-counter drugs in their children in the last 6 months, and that these drugs were mostly antipyretic and analgesic types of drugs, and most of these drugs were obtained from previous physicians, pharmacists and acquaintances. The average total score of the mothers was 184.74±10.29, the average score of the correct and conscious drug use sub-scale was 140.37±7.35, and the average effective and safe drug use sub-scale score was 44.36±5.75. The results of the study showed that mothers had a higher rate of over-the-counter drug use, and parental attitudes towards rational drug use were quite high, as opposed to the rate of over-the-counter drug use.

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