Medicine Storage at household level and Associated Factors in Wolaita Sodo Town Southern Ethiopia

Introduction Medicines are sold in health facility and peoples buy and store at home and used for treatment and prevention of disease. Medicine kept at home allows people to use irrationally and remains a key health problem in many developing countries. Objectives The purpose of this study is to assess Medicine storage at home and associated factors in Wolaita Sodo town, Southern Ethiopia From February 1 March 31,2017 Southern Ethiopia. Methods and Materials A community based cross sectional study design was used. The source population of this study was all households residing in Wolaita Sodo town. Eight hundred thirty four study participants were selected for the study by random sampling. Pre-tested structured questionnaires were used to collect the required data. The data was analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social science [SPSS] version 20. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to assess the effect of independent variables on the dependent variables. Odd ratios with 95% C.I. was used to measure association between independent variables and outcome and variables with p-value <0.05 was considered statically significant. Result Data were collected from a total of 824 households. About 212(25.7%) households were kept medicine at home. The most of medicines stored at household are left over medicines from prescribed drugs and self purchased. Most of drugs are stored in health professionals and their family members’ households.. The finding indicates that those households with health professional family member [COR=5.347, 95%CI ((3.704-7.706)], self medication practice [ COR = 2.986, 95%C.I(2.021-4.410], Knowledge on medicines if not taken without health professional consultation danger COR = 0.524, 95%C.I (0.360-0.763), knowledge about rational drug use COR = 0.501, 95%C.I (0.340-0.738). were associated with medicine storage at home. Therefore, there is a need for an intervention to address this practice