Socio-Demographics of Patients and Antibiotic Prescription Pattern in a Community Health Facility in Lagos

Abstract

There is a global concern on the challenge of indiscriminate use of antibiotics in the management of diseases. At the center of this concern is the need to prevent antibiotics resistance which could increase the morbidity and mortality of cases. This is worse off in the Sub-Saharan Africa where guidelines for management of cases are usually not complied with. The study examined socio-demographic characteristics such as age and gender and how they influence antibiotic use within a community health facility’s outpatient. Descriptive cross-sectional design was used and 630 prescriptions were examined in the month of April, 2021. All admitted, observed and referred cases were not included in the study. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for descriptive and inferential statistics. The average antibiotics encounter was 37.6% and the differences of antibiotics encounter observed across different ages were statistically significant (X2=21.985, df=4, p< 0.001). There were differences in antibiotics encounter between being a child and being an adult and these differences were statistically significant (X2= 13.769, df=1, p<0.001). The odds of antibiotics encounter decreased by 28% per unit increase in age (OR = 0.715; 95%CI: 0.333 - 1.097). This predominance of antibiotic use among younger people could create resistance within this sub-population. This young population is the source of the nation’s future human resources and regular training and update courses for health workers in this field should be a priority to avoid increase in morbidity and mortality from antibiotics resistance and treatment failures. Key Words: Antibiotics; Community health; Prescription; Resistance; Socio-demographic