Health workers with reports of headache in a medium-sized hospital in the interior of São Paulo and self-medication with analgesics

Abstract

The aim was to detect the level of headache prevalence and awareness of the nursing team regarding self-medication for headache, 50 nursing professionals answered the questionnaire applied at Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Avaré, the data obtained were analyzed by the Epi-Info® software. Self-medication with analgesics is something very common among health professionals. Nursing has a pharmacological knowledge base and for this reason has greater self-confidence to self-medicate. It was evidenced that 100% of people are aware of self-medication and are fully aware of its risks, although this knowledge does not prevent 78.9% of people who participated in the research from self-medicating with analgesics, the ease of access to drugs makes it easier for the individual to self-medicate to feel pain relief, which may be camouflaging a more serious disease, causing chronic dependence or collateral damage in their body by the use of analgesics with certain types of active principles. A relative percentage sought medical attention for headache although this did not prevent them from self-medicating with other non-prescription drugs.