Antimalarial drug prescribing practice in private and public health facilities in South-east Nigeria: a descriptive study

Meremikwu, M., Okomo, U., Nwachukwu, C., Oyo-Ita, A., Eke-Njoku, J., Okebe, J., Oyo-Ita, E. and Garner, Paul ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0607-6941 (2007) 'Antimalarial drug prescribing practice in private and public health facilities in South-east Nigeria: a descriptive study'. Malaria Journal, Vol 6, Issue 55.

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Abstract

Background: Nigeria's national standard has recently moved to artemisinin combination treatments for malaria. As clinicians in the private sector are responsible for attending a large proportion of the population ill with malaria, this study compared prescribing in the private and public sector in one State in Nigeria prior to promoting ACTs. w:\fmbatch_out
Objective: To assess prescribing for uncomplicated malaria in government and private health facilities in Cross River State.
Method: Audit of 665 patient records at six private and seven government health facilities in 2003.
Results: Clinicians in the private sector were less likely to record history or physical examination than those in public facilities, but otherwise practice and prescribing were similar. Overall, 45% of patients had a diagnostic blood slides; 77% were prescribed monotherapy, either chloroquine (30.2%), sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (22.7%) or artemisinin derivatives alone (15.8%). Some 20.8% were prescribed combination therapy; the commonest was chloroquine with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine. A few patients (3.5%) were prescribed sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine-mefloquine in the private sector, and only 3.0% patients were prescribed artemisinin combination treatments.
Conclusion: Malaria treatments were varied, but there were not large differences between the public and private sector. Very few are following current WHO guidelines. Monotherapy with artemisinin derivatives is relatively common.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.malariajournal.com/content/6/1/55
Uncontrolled Keywords:	malaria kenya audit
Subjects:	QV Pharmacology > Anti-Inflammatory Agents. Anti-Infective Agents. Antineoplastic Agents > QV 256 Antimalarials QV Pharmacology > Drug Standardization. Pharmacognosy. Medicinal Plants > QV 748 Prescription writing. Dosage. Dosage calculations WA Public Health > WA 20.5 Research (General) WC Communicable Diseases > Tropical and Parasitic Diseases > WC 770 Therapy
Faculty: Department:	Groups (2002 - 2012) > International Health Group
Digital Object Identifer (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2875-6-55
Depositing User:	Faye Moody
Date Deposited:	22 Sep 2010 10:19
Last Modified:	06 Sep 2019 10:14
URI:	https://archive.lstmed.ac.uk/id/eprint/1241

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