Cargando…
Potential and weak links in the management of tuberculosis by Pakistani private pharmacy staff
INTRODUCTION: The emergence of MDR-TB is a global threat and an obstacle to the effective control of TB in Pakistan. A lack of proper TB knowledge among the staff in private pharmacies and the sale of compromised quality anti-TB drugs are the main instigators of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2023
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10034968/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36969650 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.983997 |
_version_ | 1784911324128477184 |
---|---|
author | Balquis, Fatima Sohail, Muhammad Farhan Hamid, Huma Ullah, Waseem Khan, Amer Hayat Shahnaz, Gul |
author_facet | Balquis, Fatima Sohail, Muhammad Farhan Hamid, Huma Ullah, Waseem Khan, Amer Hayat Shahnaz, Gul |
author_sort | Balquis, Fatima |
collection | PubMed |
description | INTRODUCTION: The emergence of MDR-TB is a global threat and an obstacle to the effective control of TB in Pakistan. A lack of proper TB knowledge among the staff in private pharmacies and the sale of compromised quality anti-TB drugs are the main instigators of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Thus, this study was aimed at investigating the quality and storage conditions of fixed-dose combination (FDC) anti-TB drugs along with the awareness of staff working in private pharmacies regarding the identification of potential patients with TB and dispensing the inappropriate treatment regimens contributing to MDR-TB. METHODS: The study is completed in two phases. In phase I a cross-sectional study is performed using two quantitative research designs, i.e., exploratory and descriptive, to evaluate the knowledge of private pharmacy staff. The sample of 218 pharmacies was selected. While in phase II cross sectional survey is conducted in 10 facilities from where FDC anti TB drugs were sampled for analyzing their quality. RESULT: Results revealed the presence of pharmacists only at 11.5% of pharmacies. Approximately 81% of staff at pharmacies had no awareness of MDR-TB, while 89% of pharmacies had no TB-related informative materials. The staff identified that most of the patients with TB (70%) were of poor socio-economic class, which restricted their purchase of four FDCs only up to 2–3 months. Only 23% were acquainted with the Pakistan National TB Program (NTP). Except for MDR-TB, the results showed a significant correlation between the experiences of staff with TB awareness. Findings from the quality evaluation of four FDC-TB drugs indicated that the dissolution and content assay of rifampicin were not according to the specifications, and overall, 30% of samples failed to comply with specifications. However, the other quality attributes were within the limits. CONCLUSION: In light of the data, it can be concluded that private pharmacies could be crucial to the effective management of NTP through the timely identification of patients with TB, appropriate disease and therapy-related education and counseling, and proper storage and stock maintenance. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10034968 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-100349682023-03-24 Potential and weak links in the management of tuberculosis by Pakistani private pharmacy staff Balquis, Fatima Sohail, Muhammad Farhan Hamid, Huma Ullah, Waseem Khan, Amer Hayat Shahnaz, Gul Front Public Health Public Health INTRODUCTION: The emergence of MDR-TB is a global threat and an obstacle to the effective control of TB in Pakistan. A lack of proper TB knowledge among the staff in private pharmacies and the sale of compromised quality anti-TB drugs are the main instigators of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Thus, this study was aimed at investigating the quality and storage conditions of fixed-dose combination (FDC) anti-TB drugs along with the awareness of staff working in private pharmacies regarding the identification of potential patients with TB and dispensing the inappropriate treatment regimens contributing to MDR-TB. METHODS: The study is completed in two phases. In phase I a cross-sectional study is performed using two quantitative research designs, i.e., exploratory and descriptive, to evaluate the knowledge of private pharmacy staff. The sample of 218 pharmacies was selected. While in phase II cross sectional survey is conducted in 10 facilities from where FDC anti TB drugs were sampled for analyzing their quality. RESULT: Results revealed the presence of pharmacists only at 11.5% of pharmacies. Approximately 81% of staff at pharmacies had no awareness of MDR-TB, while 89% of pharmacies had no TB-related informative materials. The staff identified that most of the patients with TB (70%) were of poor socio-economic class, which restricted their purchase of four FDCs only up to 2–3 months. Only 23% were acquainted with the Pakistan National TB Program (NTP). Except for MDR-TB, the results showed a significant correlation between the experiences of staff with TB awareness. Findings from the quality evaluation of four FDC-TB drugs indicated that the dissolution and content assay of rifampicin were not according to the specifications, and overall, 30% of samples failed to comply with specifications. However, the other quality attributes were within the limits. CONCLUSION: In light of the data, it can be concluded that private pharmacies could be crucial to the effective management of NTP through the timely identification of patients with TB, appropriate disease and therapy-related education and counseling, and proper storage and stock maintenance. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-03-09 /pmc/articles/PMC10034968/ /pubmed/36969650 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.983997 Text en Copyright © 2023 Balquis, Sohail, Hamid, Ullah, Khan and Shahnaz. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Public Health Balquis, Fatima Sohail, Muhammad Farhan Hamid, Huma Ullah, Waseem Khan, Amer Hayat Shahnaz, Gul Potential and weak links in the management of tuberculosis by Pakistani private pharmacy staff |
title | Potential and weak links in the management of tuberculosis by Pakistani private pharmacy staff |
title_full | Potential and weak links in the management of tuberculosis by Pakistani private pharmacy staff |
title_fullStr | Potential and weak links in the management of tuberculosis by Pakistani private pharmacy staff |
title_full_unstemmed | Potential and weak links in the management of tuberculosis by Pakistani private pharmacy staff |
title_short | Potential and weak links in the management of tuberculosis by Pakistani private pharmacy staff |
title_sort | potential and weak links in the management of tuberculosis by pakistani private pharmacy staff |
topic | Public Health |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10034968/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36969650 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.983997 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT balquisfatima potentialandweaklinksinthemanagementoftuberculosisbypakistaniprivatepharmacystaff AT sohailmuhammadfarhan potentialandweaklinksinthemanagementoftuberculosisbypakistaniprivatepharmacystaff AT hamidhuma potentialandweaklinksinthemanagementoftuberculosisbypakistaniprivatepharmacystaff AT ullahwaseem potentialandweaklinksinthemanagementoftuberculosisbypakistaniprivatepharmacystaff AT khanamerhayat potentialandweaklinksinthemanagementoftuberculosisbypakistaniprivatepharmacystaff AT shahnazgul potentialandweaklinksinthemanagementoftuberculosisbypakistaniprivatepharmacystaff |