Assessment of the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of pharmacy students toward self-medication using artificial intelligence: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: The objectives of our study were to assess self-reported knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) among pharmacy students regarding self-medication (SM) using artificial intelligence (AI) for personal use, to determine the relationships amongst KAP parameters, and to examine the association between students' demographics with their KAP. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted. Four hundred and four pharmacy students completed the Arabic online survey. The survey consisted of four sections demographics, KAP. Mann-Whitney U tests, Kruskal-Wallis H test and Spearman correlation were used to analyze data. RESULTS: The majority of pharmacy students were female (77.5%), enrolled at public universities (70.8%) as bachelor's degree (53.7%). Students showed moderate self-reported knowledge (36.64 ± 5.39, range: 9-45) and attitudes (46.02 ± 7.94, range: 12-60), while mean practice scores were low to moderate. Self-reported Knowledge and practices scores were significantly associated with educational level (p = 0.044 and p = 0.005, respectively), however gender, university type and chronic diseases status had no significant differences observed among KAP. Positive relationships were observed between age and attitudes. Moreover, strong correlations were demonstrated among KAP. Saving time and effort was the main motivation for SM using AI (52.0%). The most utilized AI tool was ChatGPT (77.48%) and painkillers (47.3%) were the most searched drug for SM. CONCLUSION: Pharmacy students in this study exhibited relatively low-to-moderate levels of practice regarding SM using AI, despite having moderate self-reported knowledge and positive attitudes. Considering rising reliance on AI-based health platforms, integrating AI-related modules into pharmacy curricula will potentially promote safe, responsible, and effective utilization of AI tools in SM practices.