Association between Disability Status, Self-Medication Behaviour, and Residence Location among Those Aged 45 Years and Older in China

Objective: To examine the association between self-medication behavior and disability status among urban and rural residents aged 45 years and older in China and the patterns of their self-medication choices.

Methods: A national sample in 2011-2012 was drawn from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, including 8,541 rural and 5,791 urban residents aged 45 years and older. Respondents were asked “How did you treat yourself during the past month (not including cases with prescriptions)?”, with possible answers “OTC”, “prescription drugs”, “traditional medicines” and “other”. We defined disability status as having 1 or more kinds of physical disabilities, vision impairment, or hearing problems. Both univariate and multivariate analyses were used to compare disability-associated disparities in self-medication behavior, stratified by residence location.

Results: In both rural and urban areas, a larger proportion of the disabled population had self-medicated in the past month than had the non-disabled population (Rural 49.3% vs. 41.2%; Urban 55.5% vs. 44.5%). After controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, health status, and geographic covariates, disabled respondents in rural areas were 1.17 times more likely than non-disabled respondents to self-medicate; however, the association did not remain significant in urban areas. The disabled were more likely to use 2 categories of medications in both areas, especially in rural areas (10.1% vs. 6.5%).

Conclusions: Self-medication, as well as associated risky behavior, is more prevalent among the disabled population aged 45 years and older in rural China than among the non-disabled population. The government should take steps to make self-medication safer in rural China.