Abstract
A correlation study was conducted to investigate the extent to which psychosocial factors (Self-efficacy, Beliefs about Medicine, Doctor–Patient Relationship, and Health Anxiety) tend to influence the self-medication practice in medical and non-medical students. It also aims to find if these two groups differ in their self-medication behavior and if the doctor-patient relationship acts as a mediator between psychosocial factors and self-medication. A total of 112 students, medical students (n=47, M=20.51, SD=1.38) and non-medical students (n=65, M=21.15, SD=2.25) were recruited from different universities and medical colleges through convenience sampling. A demographic information sheet and general health indicators form were used along with the Self-Medication Scale, Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire by Horne et al. (1999), General Self-Efficacy Scale by Schwarzer and Jerusalem (1995), Patient-Doctor Relationship Questionnaire by Van der Feltz-Cornelis et al. (2004), and Short Health Anxiety Inventory by Salkovskis et al. (2002) for data collection. The findings of the study revealed that medical students demonstrated greater engagement in self-medication practices, stronger beliefs regarding medication overuse and medication harm, higher self-efficacy, and greater health anxiety compared to non-medical students. Health anxiety demonstrated a significant positive association with self-medication practices, whereas doctor-patient relationship demonstrated a significant negative association with self-medication behavior among both group of students. The findings further revealed that doctor-patient relationship significantly mediated the relationship between psychosocial factors and self-medication practices. Several sociodemographic characteristics and health-related indicators including gender, monthly family income, lifestyle, exercise behavior, and food preferences also demonstrated significant differences across study variables. The results of the present study also reveal that the students' behavior of self-medication is not just based on their medical knowledge and the availability of medicines but also on psychological factors, perceptions of the health service, and health-related concerns. A greater awareness of the importance of social, psychological and interpersonal aspects of healthcare and self-medication behaviors in young adults is further highlighted.