Background: Self–medication is defined as “Medication that is taken on patient‘s own plan or on advice of a pharmacist or lay person”1. Present study focus on prevalence and attitude of self – medication practices among study participants.

Objective– To study self–medication practices in rural field practice area of a medical college and factors influencing it . Methods– A community based cross–sectional study. Method of sampling – By simple random sampling method by lottery method. Methodology–400 participants  from sampled families of both genders, of age 18 to 70 years.  With consent, were interviewed and responses were entered in pre structured proforma. Analysis was done using Epi–info & WINPEPI Results– 144/400 (36 %) participants practiced self–medication, which included 69(47.91%) female and 75(52.09%) male participants. Reasons for seeking self–medication were mainly lack of time to visit doctor 53(36.80%) followed by to save money 50 (34.72%). Knowledge about characteristics of drugs was not found satisfactory and correct responses about dose of drug/ medicine used were 36 (25.%), duration of treatment 22 (15.27%) and side effects of drug /medicine used 17 (11.80%) respectively out of 144 self–medication practitioners.

Source of information for self medication was prominently previous prescription by the doctor or left over medicines 90 (62.5%) followed by over the counter from pharmacist or compounder 78 (54.16%).

Conclusion– Prevalence of self medication was 36 % & It necessitates creating awareness regarding advantages and disadvantages of self –medication practice in community for the rational use of medicine.