prevalence and cause of self-medication in iran: a systematic review and meta-analysis article

medication self medication over the counter non prescription prevalence epidemiology etiology occurrence and iran in google scholar pubmed scopus magiran sid and iranmedex (from 2000 to 2015). to estimate the overall self medication prevalence computer software cma 2 applied. in order to report the results forest plot was employed. results out of 1256 articles 25 articles entered to study. the overall prevalence of self medication based on the random effect model was estimated to be 53% (95% ci lowest= 42% highest=67%). the prevalence of self medication in students was 67% (95% ci lowest=55% highest=81%) in the household 36% (95% ci lowest=17% highest= 77%) and in the elderly people 68% (95% ci lowest=54% highest=84%).the most important cause of self medication was mild symptoms of disease. the most important group of disease in which patients self medicated was respiratory diseases and the most important group of medication was analgesics. conclusion the results show a relatively higher prevalence of self medication among the iranian community setting as compared to other countries. raising public awareness culture building and control of physicians and pharmacies’ performance can have beneficial effects in reduce of prevalence of self medication.