University students’ beliefs about medicines

• Objective To investigate Swedish university students’ beliefs about medicines. Method Data was collected with Beliefs about medicine questionnaire (BMQ) among 642 registered first year students at Göteborg University in the autumn 2003. The students were studying pharmacy, medicine, nursing, dispensing pharmacy, pharmaceutical bioscience or finance/accounting. BMQ is divided in a specific- and a general part. The general part was used here and measured beliefs in medicines’ harmful effects (General-Harm), beliefs in doctors’ over-prescribing (General-Overuse) and beliefs in medicines’ beneficial effects (General-Benefit). Results The response-rate was 71.6 %. A majority of the students were women and younger than 25 years. Almost 85 % had prior experience with prescription medicines, 90.0 % with over-the-counter medicines and 37.4 % with herbal medicines. More women than men currently used medicines. Pharmacy students had a significantly higher General-Harm than students in medicine, dispensing pharmacy and finance/accounting. Mean values of BMQ was similar for students in pharmacy and pharmaceutical bioscience. Students in medicine and dispensing pharmacy had comparable means for the different subparts. All courses had high (>4.0) General-Benefit and a General-Harm below 3.0. Women had significantly higher General-Harm than men. General-Benefit showed that first year students in the university thought medicines were beneficial. Pharmacy students saw the largest risk with medicines and thought doctors often over-prescribed medicines. Students in medicine, nursing and dispensing pharmacy will have the most patient-related work. The results show that students in medicine and dispensing pharmacy have a higher confidence in medicines compared to nursing students. Conclusions First year students at the university think medicines are beneficial and not very harmful. Can university educations with focus on medicine and caring change beliefs in medicines?

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Medicinska och farmaceutiska grundvetenskaper -- Samhällsfarmaci och klinisk farmaci (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Basic Medicine -- Social and Clinical Pharmacy (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Beliefs about medicine questionnaire (BMQ)

students

attitudes to medicines

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)