Prevalence and Determinants of Prescribed Drug Use Among Pregnant Women at Public Health Center in Wolkite Town, Southern Ethiopia

: Background : Incautious utilization of drugs by pregnant women for therapeutic reasons may result in severe functional and structural damages in the developing fetus. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence and associated factors of prescribed drug use among pregnant women at public health center in Gurage Zone, Southern Ethiopia. Methods : Institution based cross sectional study was conducted on pregnant women. Data was collected from patient charts and interviewing pregnant women by using standard data collection tools. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 23.0 and multinomial logistic regression model was utilized estimate association across different study variables. P-values <0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results : Of a total of 418 pregnant women, about 91.1% were prescribed with at least one medication and there were an average 2.4 numbers of drugs per a prescription. Pregnant women with comorbidity were AOR = 19.66, 95% CI (8.747-44.218), who visited the health facility once were AOR = 2.787 95% CI (1.265-6.142) and twice were AOR =2.704 (1.042-7.018), and with primigravida were AOR = 3.553 95% CI (1.644-7.680) times more likely to use prescribed drugs (except ferrous sulphate). Conclusion : Although majority of the drugs used was appropriate and safe medications according to FDA risk classification system, the prevalence of prescribed medication use during pregnancy is very high in public health center of Wolkite town. Presence of comorbidity, gravidity and time of first visits to health facilities were significantly associated with prescribed drug use during pregnancy.