Assessment of rational use of antibacterials among female patients with urinary tract infections at Kayunga Regional Referral Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: According to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, more than half of all medicines are prescribed or dispensed inappropriately not in compliance to the clinical guidelines and half of all patients fail to take medicines dispensed to them correctly resulting into irrational use of medicines. A study conducted Uganda found that only 42% of UTI patients were prescribed the correct antibiotic according to the standard treatment guidelines and 50% of patients had adequate knowledge about the dispensed medicines. However , there are few studies conducted in Uganda focusing specifically on the appropriate management of urinary tract infections (UTIs) which are prevalent among females attending the health facilities . this study therefore assessed the rational use of antibacterial medicines among female patient with UTIs at Kayunga Regional Referral Hospital. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study, based on a review of antibiotic prescriptions was conducted at Kayunga regional referral hospital. A sample of 385 prescriptions was reviewed and assessed for compliance to the Uganda clinical guidelines 2020. A data recoding checklist was filled after careful observation and was used to asses for the compliance of the prescriptions to the UCG and compliance to the dispensing practices. An exit interview was used to assess the patients’ knowledge and understanding of how to take the drug. The data was analyzed using statistical package for the social science (SPSS), Version 21.Results: A study included 385 patients and their prescriptions. Of these 267 (69.5 %) of the prescriptions were compliant to the Uganda clinical guidelines 2020.There was no compliance to dispensing guidelines. All the medicines dispensed were inadequately labeled and none of them had the patient name. Regarding patient knowledge, only 178 (46. 2 %) of the patients had adequate knowledge about the use of medicines that were dispensed to them. Conclusion and recommendations: the overall compliance of the prescriptions to the Uganda clinical guidelines 2020 was fair, compliance to the standard dispensing guidelines was poor and the patients had inadequate knowledge regarding the use of the antibacterial medicines that were dispensed to them. There is need to strengthen antibiotic use in health facilities through setting up stewardship programs and interventions to promote adherence to the national treatment guidelines such as continuous medical education and close supervision of the prescribers. Key words: include; prescription, dispensing, patient knowledge, medicine.