Purpose: To determine the prevalence of drug therapy problems (DTPs)

ObjectivesThis study aimed at describing the pattern of outpatient antimalarial drug prescribing in a secondary and a tertiary hospital, and to assess adherence to the National Antimalarial Treatment Guideline (ATG).MethodsAn audit of antimalarial prescription files from the two health facilities for a period of six months in 2008 was conducted. Semi structured questionnaires were used to collect information from the doctors and pharmacists on their awareness and knowledge of the National Antimalarial Treatment Guideline.ResultsArtemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) were the most prescribed antimalarials. Overall, 81.4% of the total prescriptions contained ACTs, out of which 56.8% were artemetherlumefantrine. However, adherence to the drugs indicated by national guideline within the DU90% was 38.5% for the tertiary and 66.7 % for the secondary hospital. The standard practice of prescribing with generic name was still not adhered to as evidenced in the understudied hospitals. The percentage of health care providers that were aware of the ATG was 88.2% for doctors and 85.1% for pharmacists. However, 13.3% and 52.2% of doctors and pharmacists respectively could not properly list the drugs specified in the guideline. Amodiaquine was the most commonly preferred option for managing children aged 0 – 3 months with malaria infection against the indicated oral quinine.ConclusionThis study showed an increased use of artemisinin-based combination therapy for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria compared previous reports in Nigeria. This study also highlights the need for periodic in-service quality assurance among health professionals with monitoring of adherence to and assessment of knowledge of clinical guidelines to ensure the practice of evidence based medicine.

IntroductionIncreasing knowledge of factors predisposing individuals to depression appears to be an important preventive strategy. However, there is no validated instrument for evaluating knowledge of risk factors for depression among adolescents. Therefore, we aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire to assess knowledge of risk factors for teen depression.MethodsExtensive literature search and expert consultations were carefully conducted. The content, face, and convergent validity of the prefinal Knowledge of Risk Factors for Teen Depression Questionnaire (KRFD‐Q) were performed. The Cronbach's alpha and test‐retest reliability of KRFD‐Q were conducted. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to delineate the final items into distinct clusters. Participants’ demographic characteristics were presented using descriptive statistics. All analyses were performed using SPSS version 20.ResultsA total of 17 items were generated after an extensive literature search and expert consultations. Two items were considered as repetitions and thus deleted. The overall Cronbach's alpha of KRFD‐Q was 0.72. Test‐retest reliability (r = 0.83, P < .0001) and convergent validity (r = 0.61, P = .034) were satisfactory. The corrected item‐total correlation of KRFD‐Q ranged from 0.13 to 0.45. The EFA identified three factors, (1) family abuse, stress, and self‐criticism (7 items), (2) social/relationship factors (5 items), and (3) genetic and economic factors (3 items).DiscussionThe findings of this study demonstrate that 15‐item KRFD‐Q developed is satisfactorily valid and reliable to measure the knowledge of risk factors for teen depression among university undergraduate students.

Background In 2005, Nigeria changed its policy on prevention of malaria in pregnancy to intermittent preventive treatment with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (IPTp-SP). Indicators of impact of effective prevention and control of malaria on pregnancy (MIP) are low birth weight (LBW) and maternal anaemia by parity. This study determined the prevalence of LBW for different gravidity groups during periods of pre- and postpolicy change to IPTp-SP. Methods Eleven-year data were abstracted from the delivery registers of two hospitals. Study outcomes calculated for both pre- (2000–2004) and post-IPTp-SP-policy (2005–2010) years were prevalence of LBW for different gravidity groups and risk of LBW in primigravidae compared to multigravidae. Results Out of the 11,496 singleton deliveries recorded within the 11-year period, the prevalence of LBW was significantly higher in primigravidae than in multigravidae for both prepolicy (6.3% versus 4%) and postpolicy (8.6% versus 5.1%) years. The risk of LBW in primigravidae compared to multigravidae increased from 1.62 (1.17–2.23) in the prepolicy years to 1.74 (1.436–2.13) during the postpolicy years. Conclusion The study demonstrated that both the prevalence and risk of LBW remained significantly higher in primigravidae even after the change in policy to IPTp-SP.

HUI3 demonstrated constructed validity among a population of Nigerian patients with high blood pressure.