The Use of Medicines and Other Products without a Physician’s Advice Among Adults: Turkey Health Survey 2008, 2010 and 2012

Abstract The study was carried out to determine the rate and associated features of the use of medicines, nutraceutical products and vitamins without a physician’s advice during the last two weeks. The microdata sets of the Health Surveys for 2008, 2010 and 2012 were used in the research. In these studies, in which 57.055 individuals older than 15 years participated, the rate of the use of medicines, nutraceutical products or vitamins without a physician’s advice and its relationship to certain features were analysed. According to the result of the study, the rate of medicine and/or other product use without a physician’s advice was 13,1%. The rate of medicine/product use without a physician’s advice was higher among women (OR:1,12), employees (OR:1,35), the people who pay the health care costs themselves (OR: 1,34) and in rural areas (OR:1,15) whereas it was lower among the people covered by the Government Employees Retirement Fund and Social Security Insurance and among the poor. Self-medication was more common among people with physical illness and among those whose perceived health status was moderate, while it was less common among people with poor health. Higher rates of drug/product use without a physician’s advice were found among the people with moderate health problems and those with non-life-threatening chronic conditions. Self-medication rate was lower among people who consulted a family physician and a specialist (11,8% and 11,7%, respectively) during last month while it was 23,5% among individuals who could not utilize healthcare services. Besides, the rate of self-medication was higher among people who were not satisfied with healthcare services