Self-medication is one of growing concern among Iranian people especially among patients. This study was aimed to assess self-medication practices and to evaluate the types of drug that are used in patients with diabetes mellitus type 2. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 150 type 2 diabetic patients attending to diabetes clinic of Zahedan city in 2015. A well-validated questionnaire that included 3 sections about self-medication was administered to the subjects after introducing the term “self-medication” verbally. The subjects were selected using convenience sampling method. In this study 111 female (74%) and 39 male (26%) patients were assessed. The mean age of the subjects was 51.9±12.4 years. About 80.7% of the participants were reported self medication with different drugs. The self-medication was significantly related to female gender (OR=2.1, 95% CI: 1.21-8.9), unemployment (OR=3.03, 95% CI: 1.64-11.5) and illiteracy (OR=2.03, 95% CI: 1.16-11.02; illiterate patients compared to patients with academic education). Self-medication was highly common among patients with diabetes mellitus type 2 irrespective to their length of the disease. Obtaining medical knowledge increased the patients’ awareness of the risk of self-medication which may result in practicing responsible self-medication. However, medical teaching institutions need to educate the patients about the proper use of medicines as a therapeutic tool.
