Abuse and misuse of prescription and non-prescription drugs among clients utilizing community pharmacies in Lagos, Nigeria

Abstract

The increased availability of drugs from community pharmacies nowadays, coupled with inadequate methods to monitor appropriate use, has contributed significantly to the dramatic rise in drug abuse and misuse. This study aimed to evaluate requested prescription and non-prescription drugs suspected of abuse in community pharmacies in Isolo, Lagos as well as describe the methods Nigerian community pharmacists utilized in managing such suspected abuse. A descriptive crosssectional study was conducted among 200 community pharmacists, selected by multi-stage sampling technique over a 2-week period. The mean age of the pharmacists was 30.1 ± 7.5 years. There were more female 128 (64.0%) than male pharmacists 72 (36.0%) and majority (112 , 56.0%) had between 1-5 years of experience. Pharmacists received a total of 8592 requests for often- dispensed prescription and OTC drugs with 3341 and 5251 prescriptions received from males and females respectively. Over 40% (3722) of these requests which included 1543 OTC and 2179 prescription drugs were suspected of abuse. Antimalarials and simple analgesics were suspected to be the most abused drugs for prescription and non-prescription drugs respectively.