AN APPRAISALOF HEALTH COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGNS ON SELF-MEDICATION AMONGST UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF KOGI STATE UNIVERSITY, ANYIGBA

AN APPRAISALOF HEALTH COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGNS ON SELF-MEDICATION AMONGST UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF KOGI STATE UNIVERSITY, ANYIGBA

Abstract:

The use of Communication Campaigns to support the fight against certain unhealthy practices such as self-medication has remained an essential focus engaging theattention of health communication stakeholders. The practice which is common among youth especially University students, call for a serious concern due to the adverse effect associated with it.Therefore, thisstudy focused on appraising the communication campaigns on self-medication among undergraduate students of Kogi State University, Anyigba. The Two-Step-Flow Theory provided the framework for this study.A survey Research method was employed for this study using questionnaire and focused group discussion to collectdata. From the analysis of the data collected, it was discovered that there was inadequatespreading of the coverage of the posters used for the campaign at strategic locations around the campus. Also, radio talk show on self-medication was not regular and popularamong students in the university. These findings thus point to why inappropriate self-medication still prevails among students in the university. The result revealed that majorityof students had knowledge of self-medication, but still practise it.Thus, communicationcampaign programmes in the university were found to be irregular and inadequate to impact positively on self-medication behaviour change among students of the university. However, interpersonal communication and the television were found to be the major sources of information onself-medication amongst the respondents. It was also establishedthat interpersonal communication and social media were the most effective means of reaching out to students about self-medication and its consequences. The study concludesthat media campaign on self-medication in Kogi State University has not effectively created positive response towards changing students‘ self-medication behaviour.It istherefore recommended that the University Authority should intensify effort on self-medicationcampaigns byfrequently featuring it in various campus-based programmes using tools of interpersonal communication and social media platforms. These will help to design acontext based language in packagingself-medication messages that will appeal to the sense of the target audience. By so doing, there is the likelihood that it may engender behaviour change on self-medication crises amongst students

AN APPRAISALOF HEALTH COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGNS ON SELF-MEDICATION AMONGST UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF KOGI STATE UNIVERSITY, ANYIGBA