Abstract:
Background: Drug therapy problem is a significant challenge to provide high quality health care service
for the patients. It is associated with morbidity, mortality, increased hospital stay and reduced quality of
life. Moreover, pediatric patients are quite susceptible to drug therapy problems.
Objective: To assess drug therapy problems and its contributing factors among pediatric patients
diagnosed with infectious disease admitted to pediatric ward of Jimma university medical center, from
April 1 to June 30, 2018.
Methodology: Prospective observational study was conducted among pediatric patients with infectious
disease admitted from April 01 to June 30, 2018. Drug therapy problems were identified by using
Cipolle’s and strand’s drug related problem classification method. Patient’s written informed consent
was obtained after explaining the purpose of the study. Patient’s specific data were collected using
structured questionnaire. Data were entered into Epi data version 4.0.2 and then exported to statistical
software package version 21.0 for analysis. To identify predictors of drug therapy problems occurrence,
multiple stepwise backward logistic regression analysis were done. The 95% CI was used to show the
accuracy of data analysis and statistical significance was considered at p-value <0.05.
Results: A total of 304 pediatric patients were included in the study. Of these, 226(74.3%) patients had at
least one drug therapy problem during their hospital stay. A total of 356 drug therapy problems were
identified among two hundred twenty six patients. Non-compliance (28.65%) and dose too low (27.53%)
were the most common type of drug related problems while disease comorbidity [AOR=3.39, 95% CI=
(1.89-6.08)], Polypharmacy [AOR=3.16, 95% CI= (1.61-6.20)] and more than six days stay in hospital
[AOR=3.37, 95% CI= (1.71-6.64) were independent predictors of drug therapy problem occurrence.
Conclusion and recommendation: Drug therapy problems were common in pediatric patients with
infectious disease in the study area. Presence of comorbidity, Polypharmacy and Prolonged hospital stay
were the predictors of drug therapy problem in study area. Therefore, to overcome the significant gaps in
pediatric pharmaceutical care, clinical pharmacists, Pediatricians and other health care professional
have to work in collaboration
