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Self-medication with antibiotics in rural population in Greece: a cross-sectional multicenter study

BACKGROUND: Self-medication is an important driver of antimicrobial overuse as well as a worldwide problem. The aim of the present study was to estimate the use of antibiotics, without medical prescription, in a sample of rural population presenting in primary care in southern Greece. METHODS: The s...

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Autores principales: Skliros, Eystathios, Merkouris, Panagiotis, Papazafiropoulou, Athanasia, Gikas, Aristofanis, Matzouranis, George, Papafragos, Christos, Tsakanikas, Ioannis, Zarbala, Irene, Vasibosis, Alexios, Stamataki, Petroula, Sotiropoulos, Alexios
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2924846/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20691111
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-11-58
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author Skliros, Eystathios
Merkouris, Panagiotis
Papazafiropoulou, Athanasia
Gikas, Aristofanis
Matzouranis, George
Papafragos, Christos
Tsakanikas, Ioannis
Zarbala, Irene
Vasibosis, Alexios
Stamataki, Petroula
Sotiropoulos, Alexios
author_facet Skliros, Eystathios
Merkouris, Panagiotis
Papazafiropoulou, Athanasia
Gikas, Aristofanis
Matzouranis, George
Papafragos, Christos
Tsakanikas, Ioannis
Zarbala, Irene
Vasibosis, Alexios
Stamataki, Petroula
Sotiropoulos, Alexios
author_sort Skliros, Eystathios
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Self-medication is an important driver of antimicrobial overuse as well as a worldwide problem. The aim of the present study was to estimate the use of antibiotics, without medical prescription, in a sample of rural population presenting in primary care in southern Greece. METHODS: The study included data from 1,139 randomly selected adults (545 men/594 women, mean age ± SD: 56.2 ± 19.8 years), who visited the 6 rural Health Centres of southern Greece, between November 2009 and January 2010. The eligible participants were sought out on a one-to-one basis and asked to answer an anonymous questionnaire. RESULTS: Use of antibiotics within the past 12 months was reported by 888 participants (77.9%). 508 individuals (44.6%) reported that they had received antibiotics without medical prescription at least one time. The major source of self-medication was the pharmacy without prescription (76.2%). The antibiotics most frequently used for self-medication were amoxicillin (18.3%), amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (15.4%), cefaclor (9.7%), cefuroxim (7.9%), cefprozil (4.7%) and ciprofloxacin (2.3%). Fever (41.2%), common cold (32.0%) and sore throat (20.6%) were the most frequent indications for the use of self-medicated antibiotics. CONCLUSION: In Greece, despite the open and rapid access to primary care services, it appears that a high proportion of rural adult population use antibiotics without medical prescription preferably for fever and common cold.
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spelling pubmed-29248462010-08-21 Self-medication with antibiotics in rural population in Greece: a cross-sectional multicenter study Skliros, Eystathios Merkouris, Panagiotis Papazafiropoulou, Athanasia Gikas, Aristofanis Matzouranis, George Papafragos, Christos Tsakanikas, Ioannis Zarbala, Irene Vasibosis, Alexios Stamataki, Petroula Sotiropoulos, Alexios BMC Fam Pract Research Article BACKGROUND: Self-medication is an important driver of antimicrobial overuse as well as a worldwide problem. The aim of the present study was to estimate the use of antibiotics, without medical prescription, in a sample of rural population presenting in primary care in southern Greece. METHODS: The study included data from 1,139 randomly selected adults (545 men/594 women, mean age ± SD: 56.2 ± 19.8 years), who visited the 6 rural Health Centres of southern Greece, between November 2009 and January 2010. The eligible participants were sought out on a one-to-one basis and asked to answer an anonymous questionnaire. RESULTS: Use of antibiotics within the past 12 months was reported by 888 participants (77.9%). 508 individuals (44.6%) reported that they had received antibiotics without medical prescription at least one time. The major source of self-medication was the pharmacy without prescription (76.2%). The antibiotics most frequently used for self-medication were amoxicillin (18.3%), amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (15.4%), cefaclor (9.7%), cefuroxim (7.9%), cefprozil (4.7%) and ciprofloxacin (2.3%). Fever (41.2%), common cold (32.0%) and sore throat (20.6%) were the most frequent indications for the use of self-medicated antibiotics. CONCLUSION: In Greece, despite the open and rapid access to primary care services, it appears that a high proportion of rural adult population use antibiotics without medical prescription preferably for fever and common cold. BioMed Central 2010-08-08 /pmc/articles/PMC2924846/ /pubmed/20691111 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-11-58 Text en Copyright ©2010 Skliros et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Skliros, Eystathios
Merkouris, Panagiotis
Papazafiropoulou, Athanasia
Gikas, Aristofanis
Matzouranis, George
Papafragos, Christos
Tsakanikas, Ioannis
Zarbala, Irene
Vasibosis, Alexios
Stamataki, Petroula
Sotiropoulos, Alexios
Self-medication with antibiotics in rural population in Greece: a cross-sectional multicenter study
title Self-medication with antibiotics in rural population in Greece: a cross-sectional multicenter study
title_full Self-medication with antibiotics in rural population in Greece: a cross-sectional multicenter study
title_fullStr Self-medication with antibiotics in rural population in Greece: a cross-sectional multicenter study
title_full_unstemmed Self-medication with antibiotics in rural population in Greece: a cross-sectional multicenter study
title_short Self-medication with antibiotics in rural population in Greece: a cross-sectional multicenter study
title_sort self-medication with antibiotics in rural population in greece: a cross-sectional multicenter study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2924846/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20691111
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-11-58
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