Understanding towards non-prescription medicines among jimma town drug retail outlets’ customers, Ethiopia

Abstract

The consumption of non-prescription medicines is on the rise globally. The use of non-prescription drug is often perceived as safe albeit they cause numerous health problems through duplication of therapies, interaction with prescribed medicines and other products. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess customers’ knowledge and attitude towards safety of nonprescription medicines. Methods: an interview based study was conducted among 169 consumers in a randomly selected 10 private pharmacies in Jimma Town, Southwest Ethiopia, from January 28 to February 10, 2013 Results: a total of 169 complete questionairs were available for analysis of which 46(27.2%) bought prescription only medicines whereas 123(72.8%) bought non-prescription medicines: either alone 97(57.4%) or in combination with prescription only medicines 26(15.4%). The decision to use these drugs was mainly (55.3%) based on a pharmacist (55.3%) or on the basis of a personal decisions. The most non-prescription medicines purchased were Anti-helimentic drugs, followed by dermatologicals, NSAIDs and Paracetamol. Around 45.5% and 8.9% claimed to read carefully the package inserts and to ask pharmacists information about non-prescription medicines respectively. Conclusions: our study discovered a great misconception among consumers towards nonprescription medicines. To the worst, both community pharmacists and physicians backed patients to consume non-prescription medication without appropriate guidance. Thus, giving drug information and awareness creation need to be strengthened to improve knowledge and attitude of Jimma town private pharmacy customers, community pharmacists and physicians about risk factors for nonprescription medicines.