Self-medication common among Brazilian health science students, study finds

Self-medication was reported by most undergraduate health science students surveyed at a private Brazilian institution, with 81.0% of participants saying they had medicated themselves at some point in their lives and 68.7% reporting self-medication during the previous 30 days. The cross-sectional study, conducted from May through December 2025, included 163 students in Dentistry, Psychology, and Nursing programs at an institution in Jundiaí, São Paulo. Although anxiety scores differed modestly between programs before adjustment, the researchers found no independent association between academic program and either anxiety or depression after accounting for other variables.

The survey used a structured questionnaire to assess self-medication, the Beck Anxiety Inventory, the Beck Depression Inventory-II, and a multidimensional measure of religiousness and spirituality. Because one item was missing from the electronic Beck Anxiety Inventory dataset, investigators prorated scores from the 20 administered items onto the conventional 0–63 scale. They used Poisson regression with robust variance to estimate adjusted prevalence ratios for self-medication and linear regression with HC3 robust standard errors to evaluate anxiety and depression scores. Complete-case analyses contained 162 students for each self-medication model, 159 for anxiety, and 150 for depression.

Students had a mean age of 30.0 years, with a median of 27 years, and ranged from 18 to 68. Nine participants, or 5.5%, attributed their self-medication to stress, while the broader pattern involved use that was substantially more common. Multivariable analyses linked living with parents and current psychiatric medication use with higher anxiety scores: the adjusted coefficients were 5.28 points for living with parents and 12.14 points for psychiatric medication use. Neither association remained stable in sensitivity analyses that assessed the influence of individual observations, and the researchers cautioned against interpreting these anxiety estimates as robust causal or even fully independent relationships.

Depression scores did not differ significantly by undergraduate program in the unadjusted comparison. In the adjusted model, several characteristics were associated with higher or lower scores. Male sex was associated with scores 7.01 points lower, while non-White self-reported race or skin color was associated with scores 4.21 points higher. Current psychiatric medication use was associated with an 11.05-point difference, and each additional year of age was associated with a 0.16-point difference. Self-rated spirituality was associated with depression scores 3.21 points lower, but self-rated religiousness was not independently associated with depression after adjustment.

The findings remain exploratory because the study used a cross-sectional design and non-probability sampling at one institution, so it cannot establish whether spirituality, psychiatric medication use, living arrangements, or other factors precede the measured symptoms. The inverse association between self-rated spirituality and depressive symptoms is not evidence that spirituality prevents depression, and the same restriction applies to all other associations. Diagnostic checks showed no problematic multicollinearity but identified heteroscedasticity and a small number of influential observations, supporting the use of robust inference and cautious interpretation. The authors call for longitudinal, multicenter research using complete validated instruments and prespecified analyses to examine whether the reported patterns persist over time and across student populations.

Subject of Research: Cross-sectional associations among self-medication, psychological symptoms, and spirituality in Brazilian health science undergraduates

Article Title: Self-medication and psychological symptoms among undergraduate health science students: exploratory associations with religiousness and spirituality in a cross-sectional study

Article References: Rodrigues, G. T., Rodrigues, P. B., Marconato, J. V., & Genaro, L. E. (2026). Self-medication and psychological symptoms among undergraduate health science students: exploratory associations with religiousness and spirituality in a cross-sectional study. BMC Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-026-05497-z

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40359-026-05497-z

Keywords: self-medication, student mental health, anxiety, depression, spirituality, religiousness, health science education, cross-sectional study, psychiatric medication, psychological, symptoms, undergraduate