Background: Self-medication is a common practice worldwide, which is increasing at an alarming rate. Self-medication refers to the usage of medicines for recurrent diseases, disorders by the patients on their own without the concern of the registered practitioners. Objectives: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of self-medication among patients visiting a dental hospital and to find out the most commonly used self-medication and most common condition of using self-medication. Materials & Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among the dental patients who visited a dental college during the month of May 2018. A 21 item questionnaire was given to 150 subjects. Data was collected and descriptive statistics were calculated and a simple frequency distribution table was formulated with frequencies and percentages. Results: Self-medication was found to be practiced by 80% of the patients. The most common condition of taking self medication was cough and common cold by 31.7% of the total participants. Analgesics were the most common drug groups to be used as self medication by more than 50% of the subjects. Conclusion: There was an alarming rise in the self medication practices among the patients in Chennai. They should be given sufficient knowledge about the medicines they were taking, regarding their indications, contra indications, cross reactions, allergies, and their side effects.
