Prevalence of and Risk Factors for Nonprescription Antibiotic Use among Individuals Presenting to One Hospital in Saudi Arabia after the 2018 Executive Regulations of Health Practice Law: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Ali Mohsen Al-Hazmi,Ahmed Arafa,Nawaf Abdullah Alamri,Khalid Abdulla Aleisa,Abdullah Ali Jammah,Khalid Alwalid Alekrish,Khalid Saeed Alshehri,Haytham Sheerah

doi:10.3390/antibiotics10080923

Ali Mohsen Al-Hazmi, Ahmed Arafa + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics10080923

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Abstract

Antibiotic resistance is a worldwide public health emergency. Nonprescription antibiotic use is a chief cause of antibiotic resistance. The Saudi Government, as a consequence, imposed in 2018 executive regulations to prevent the distribution of antibiotics without a prescription. Herein, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of and risk factors for nonprescription antibiotic use among individuals presenting to one hospital in Saudi Arabia after enacting these regulations. This cross-sectional study was conducted on people, aged ≥18 years, who presented to the primary healthcare clinics of King Khalid University Hospital in Riyadh during the period between 1/1/2019 and 28/2/2019. Participants were asked to fill out a self-administrated questionnaire assessing their nonprescription antibiotic use during the past year in addition to sociodemographic information. Then, logistic regression analyses were performed to calculate the odds ratios (ORs) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for age, sex, education, and nationality of any nonprescription antibiotic use compared with no use within the past year. Out of 463 participants, 62.9% were females, 67.4% were <40 years, and 93.7% were Saudi citizens. Overall, 30.5% of participants reported nonprescription antibiotic use during the past year (19.7% one to two times and 10.8% more than two times). Male and non-Saudi participants were more likely to report any nonprescription antibiotic use, with HRs (95% CIs) of 1.99 (1.30, 3.04) and 3.81 (1.73, 8.35), respectively. The main reasons behind nonprescription antibiotic use were having previous experience with a health condition (69.2%), inaccessibility of healthcare (26.6%), and recommendation from a relative or a friend (16.1%). A major limitation of this study was that it included individuals attending one hospital. Individuals who seek medical consultation could be dissimilar to those who do not see doctors regarding nonprescription antibiotic use.

Highlights

Introduction conditions of the Creative CommonsAs early as 1945, Sir Alexander Fleming, best known for discovering penicillin, warned of antibiotic abuse due to the expected increase in public demand [1]
Out of 512 eligible individuals, a total of 463 individuals participated in this study, with a response rate of 90.4% The main reason for nonparticipation was not having enough time
30.5% of participants reported nonprescription antibiotic use in the past year (19.7% one to two times and 10.8% more than two times) (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Introduction conditions of the Creative CommonsAs early as 1945, Sir Alexander Fleming, best known for discovering penicillin, warned of antibiotic abuse due to the expected increase in public demand [1]. Previous studies showed a high prevalence of nonprescription antibiotic use in developed [6,7,8,9,10] and developing countries [11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. This high prevalence was shown to be associated with many sociodemographic characteristics including age, sex, and education level. The reasons behind nonprescription antibiotic use varied from the inaccessibility of healthcare services to having a previous similar health condition [20,21]

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