OBJECTIVE： To provide reference for ensuring the medication safety of rural residents well. METHODS： A questionnaire survey was conducted among 162 rural residents of 27 townships in 11 counties （districts） from Yongzhou city of Hunan province. The survey data was analyzed statistically. RESULTS： A total of 5 670 questionnaires were issued and 4 376 valid questionnaires were recovered， with an effective recovery rate of 77.2％. 73.6％ residents did not considered the incompatibility among drugs when receiving two or more drugs； the proportion of increasing or decreasing drug dosage and changing drugs at will was in high level. Most of the residents who had common drugs in the family did not pay enough attention to the custody of the reserved drugs and lacked of basic knowledge； the proportion of residents who bought drugs mainly from pharmacies was the highest （50.7％）； in addition， nearly 20％ bought drugs mainly through the Internet and other ways. More than half of the residents surveyed did not understand the drug instructions； after ADR occurred， more than half of the residents surveyed would stop or change their drugs voluntarily； more than 70％ of the residents surveyed did not know or did not pay attention to characteristics and incompatibility of drugs. CONCLUSIONS： Because of the low level of education， the lack of common sense of safe drug use in local rural residents and unbalanced allocation of medical resources， the phenomenon of irrational drug use is widespread and the safety of medication is not ideal； there is a lot of room for improvement.