Sociological Analysis of Gender Differences on Self-Medication in Yasouj

Self-medication in Iran is beyond international standards and gender has an important role. Biological, psychosocial and social structure approaches believe that women are more prone to self-medication however; behavioral approaches suggest that men are more prone. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the relationship between gender and self-medication and answer whether gender can predict the probability of the self-medication or not. The research uses cross–sectional survey method. The population includes all people aged 18 to 55 in Yasouj from whom 400 subjects were selected through random multi-stage sampling method. The respondents were asked to specify whether they have done self-medication in the last two months and if yes, what kind of medicines. The study results suggest that the self-medication is high, so that 87.2% of respondents have used OTC drugs and 70.2% POM. The study results also showed that, gender cannot significantly predict the self-medication and education has a more important role in predicting probability of the self-medication. The conclusion is that women and men follow from similar patterns in self-medication.