title: A qualitative study about self-medication in the community among market vendors in Fuzhou, China.
abstract: Despite government efforts to increase healthcare insurance and access in China, many individuals, regardless of insurance status, continue to engage in high levels of self-medication. To understand the factors influencing common self-medication behaviour in a community of food market vendors in Fuzhou China, a total of 30 market vendors were randomly recruited from six food markets in 2007. In-depth interviews were conducted with each participant at their market stalls by trained interviewers using a semi-structured open-ended interview protocol. Participants were asked broad questions about their health-seeking behaviours as well as their past experiences with self-medication and hospital care. ATLAS. ti was used to manage and analyse the interview data. The results showed that hospital-based healthcare services were perceived as better quality. However, self-medication was viewed as more affordable in terms of money and time. Other factors prompting self-medication, included confidence in understanding the health problem, the easy accessibility of local pharmacies and the influences of friends/peers and advertising. Three broad domains, attitude, cost and effectiveness, were all seen to determine past decisions and experiences with self-medication. Interestingly, the effective management of self-medication via pharmacy resources raised particular concern because of perceived variation in quality. In conclusion, self-medication was found to be an important and common health-seeking behaviour driven by multiple factors. A sound and comprehensive public health system should systematically attend to these behaviours and the pharmacies, where much of the behaviour occurs.
authors.affiliation: Center for Community Health, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. fuwenyi@gmail.com
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.forename: Eli
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lieber
authors.forename: Dai
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wan
authors.forename: Yuanhao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hong
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002681:China; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D019981:Health Care Sector / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010594:Pharmacies / Q000458:organization & administration*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012648:Self Care / Q000379:methods*; D012651:Self Medication / Q000379:methods*; D055815:Young Adult