Background: Any health system should focus on three key aspects of medicines-accessibility, affordability, and rational use of medicine. Rational use of medicines (RUM) requires that “patients receive medicines that meet their clinical needs, at doses that meet their individual needs, over an appropriate period of time, and at the lowest cost to both patients and their communities. Aim: This study was conducted to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice on RUM among medical students. Materials and Methods : This was a survey-based cross-sectional study conducted after approval by the institutional ethics committee. The study population included 187 second year MBBS (fourth semester) students of Uttar Pradesh University of Medical Sciences, Saifai, Etawah, U.P, India. They were informed about the study and their consent was obtained. The identity of the students was not disclosed. Results: Total 187 students participated in the study, 103 males and 84 females. Most of them believe that it is not safe to take prescribed medicines with over the counter (OTC) medicines (55.08%). The majority of respondents (73.26%) believed that the pharmaceutical industry benefits most from irrational prescriptions, while only 6.95% believed that mass communication is a poor medium to educate people about medicines. 63.64% believed that dietary supplements can be taken without a prescription, and 55.08% believed that they read the package insert at OTC. Conclusion: Medical students will be prescribing drugs in future, they need to be aware of all aspects of Rationale use of medicine. RUM is included in the undergraduate curriculum, education in this area must be proper and vigorous so that they can be groomed to become great future prescribers.
