Article Sidebar
Published:
Oct 12, 2021Keywords:
Article Details
The author(s) retain copyright on work published by AOSIS unless specified otherwise.
Licensing and publication rights
Author(s) of work published by AOSIS are required to grant AOSIS the unlimited rights to publish the definitive work in any format, language and medium, for any lawful purpose. AOSIS requires journal authors to publish their work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the published article(s), provided attribution is given to the applicable journal with details of the original publication, as set out in the official citation of the article published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the article on the authors’ or their institution’s websites or in institutional repositories.
Previously published work may have been published under a different licence. We advise the community that if they would like to reuse the work to consult the applicable licence at article level.
Note: If you need to comply with your funding body policy, you can apply for the CC BY license after your manuscript is accepted for publication.
Main Article Content
Antibiotic use amongst pregnant women in a public hospital in KwaZulu-Natal
Sasha Naidoo
Varsha Bangalee
Frasia Oosthuizen
Abstract
Background: Antibiotics are amongst the more frequently prescribed medicines in pregnant women and the use of antibiotics is increasing. However, with limited studies available in this population, the safe use of antibiotics in pregnancy remains a concern.
Aim: To evaluate the use of antibiotics amongst pregnant women attending a public health care facility. The main objective of this study was to quantify the types of antibiotics used in pregnant women.
Setting: A public hospital classified as a referral hospital located in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.
Methods: Demographic and treatment information of women were collected retrospectively from January 2019 to July 2019. A total of 184 pregnant patients, who received antibiotic therapy, were included in this study. Descriptive and analytical measures were used to analyse both patient demographics and treatment variables.
Results: A total of 416 antibiotic prescriptions, issued to 184 patients, were reviewed. Penicillins (39.7%), macrolides (13.0%) and combination penicillin- and beta-lactam inhibitors (12.3%) were reported as the most commonly prescribed antibiotics. Rifamycin (2.9%), hydrazides (2.2%) and aminoglycosides (1.9%) were less frequently prescribed. Most antibiotics were prescribed for diseases of the circulatory system (36.1%).
Conclusion: Several classes of antibiotics were used in pregnancy despite the lack of available safety data and clinical evidence. Informing women of the potential side effects and keeping abreast with new information played an important role in the safe, rational and effective use of medicines that contributed to improving maternal health.
