Data was collected by a questionnaire that was designed based on instruments used in previous studies [10,22,23], please see Additional file 1 [1]. The questionnaire was validated by interviewing approximately 20 customers with the aim of detecting comprehension problems and to assess if the questions responded to the research aims. The instrument consisted of 22 questions: 21 multiple choice and 1 open ended question. Multiple responses were allowed for the following items: 1) Respondent symptoms provoking self-medication,
2) Reasons for self-medicating, and 3) Locations where respondents purchased antibiotics for self-medicating. We gathered information about frequency of self-medication, symptoms that provoked self-medication, with which antibiotics patients self-medicated, whom they went to for advice upon self-medicating, and if they read the antibiotic information handout. We defined antibiotics as the following: medications that treat bacterial and protozoal infections, and that are found on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Model list of Essential medicines and on the Guatemalan national “basic list” of medications [24,25]. The questionnaire was administered in a private area of the pharmacy from May to August of
2013, Monday through Friday between the hours of 9 am and 4 pm (until the target number
of questionnaires were obtained). Participants were given the option of self-administering the questionnaire or having the researcher register their responses through verbal response.