KNOWLEDGE AND AWARENESS OF ANALGESIC USE AMONG OUTPATIENTS IN A TEACHING HOSPITAL, KELANTAN

Most of the outpatient community has access to analgesic medication, especially over-the-counter analgesic medication. Both prescribed and non-prescribed analgesic medication should be consumed correctly to prevent it from being abuse. Therefore, this study aims to determine knowledge and attitudes toward analgesic use among outpatients in a teaching hospital in Kelantan. A total of 220 participants from the outpatient community at a teaching hospital, Kelantan, were involved in this study by answering the self-administered questionnaire. This study is a cross-sectional study. The collected data was analysed through SPSS version 27.0. The level of knowledge and the level of attitude of analgesic use were identified using descriptive statistics. Unexpectedly, most of the outpatient community at the teaching hospital have a fair level of knowledge and fair level of attitude toward analgesic use, with 52.3% and 46.4%, respectively. Regardless of the findings, appropriate actions and strategies should be taken immediately to solve these issues and improve the knowledge and the attitude toward analgesic use in outpatient community settings so that the community have a better understanding and good attitude toward analgesic use and consumption in the correct ways.