Eurodurg Meeting 2001
"Integrating drug utilization studies in wider Europe"

7-9 June, 2001, Prague, Czech Republic
page # 29

Prevalence of antibiotics among russian non-medical population - result of prospective pharmacoepidemiological study

I.V. ANDREEVA¹, S.A. RATCHINA¹, N.A. PETROTCHENKOVA¹, D.V. GALKIN¹, A.A. DEMIN², V.B. KUZIN³, S.T. KUSNETSOVA⁴, R.Y. LIKHATCHOVA⁵, S.V. NEDOGODA⁶, E.A. ORTENBERG⁷, V.A. CHUDYAKOVA⁸, L.S. STRATCHOUNSKI¹

¹ Institute of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, Smolensk State Medical Academy, Smolensk, Russia
² Novosibirsk State Medical Academy, Novosibirsk, Russia
³ Nizjni Novgorod State Medical Academy, Nizjni Novgorod, Russia
⁴ Ural State Medical Academy, Ekaterinburd, Russia
⁵ Outpatient department ¹7, Moscow, Russia
⁶ Volgograd State Medical Academy, Volgograd, Russia
⁷ Tyumen State Medical Academy, Tyumen, Russia
⁸ Bryansk department of health, Bryansk, Russia

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the content of antibiotics in home medicine cabinets (HMC) and to evaluate the amount of antibiotics with expired dates.

METHODS

The research was carried out in 8 Russian cities by physicians who visited families, checked the presence of antibiotics in HMC and the indications for the usage. In each city 100 families were evaluated (total 800 families). All the data was filled in a specially developed questionnaire.

RESULTS

80,6% of families had antibiotics for system usage in HMC; the average number of antibiotics per a family is 2,3. Two and more names of antimicrobials are had 54,6% of families. The most prevalent antibiotics in HMCs were co-trimoxazole (45,9%), ampicillin (42,8%), chloramphenicol (31,5%), erythromycin (24,8%), tetracycline (23,3%), doxycycline (11,8%). The percentage of antibiotics with expired dates in HMC was 15,2% (among total quantity of antimicrobials), and antibiotics with expired dates was had 24,7% of families. Tetracyclines prevailed among these medications (24,7%).

CONCLUSION

Antibiotics are widely popularized among population in Russia. Most of the "popular" antibiotics (co-trimoxazole, chloramphenicol) may cause serious adverse drug reactions. Such uncontrolled prevalence of antibiotics among non-medical population has become an important problem for general population due to increasing antibiotic resistance.