Evaluation of Irrational use of Antibiotics among the Local Population of District Shaheed Benazir Abad, Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract

The aim of study was to assess the irrational use of antibiotics among the local population of Shaheed Benazir Abad, Sindh, Pakistan. Rational or proper medication means patients consume proper medicines for said diagnostic disease and after its consumption, the symptoms disappear. For rational use, selection of medicines is very important along with its proper dosing and it is also necessary to check the adequate time for proper treatment. Cross-sectional study was conducted at various out-patient settings located in Peoples University of Medical & Health Sciences, District Shaheed Benazir Abad for the period of 06 months. Total 374 study samples were collected by using simple random sampling technique. From the total study subjects, 209 were males and 165 females. 129 people had only primary qualification. 188 study subjects were married and 149 were unmarried, people use to take antibiotics due to less knowledge and trust on the medical prescriber and take as self diagnosis found among 48 and they didn’t have proper time to visit health care facility so the shortage of time was observed among 151 people. Ciprofloxacin and co-trimaxazole were frequently used by the participants due to different causes. Health Care professional should take proper action against the pharmacies and medical stores as they sale the drugs without any prescription and proper counseling session should be conducted, in order to educate the community regarding rational and irrational use of medicaments.