Background: Satisfaction of patients is a key measure of quality pharmacy service delivery. However, the traditional way of drug inventory and dispensing practice by professionals negatively affects the satisfaction of patients. Hence, assessment of satisfaction level is an important tool to identify gaps in pharmacy service delivery and works for its improvement.

Background: Enhancing the standards of medical treatment at all levels of the healthcare delivery system can improve the quality of life in developing countries. One method to promote rational drug use is an assessment of drug use pattern based on drug use indicators. Objective: To evaluate prescription patterns at the outpatient pharmacy of Dessie Referral Hospital and Boru Meda Hospital at Dessie town. Methods: An institution-based retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the prescribing patterns in governmental hospitals of Dessie town from April 1 to May 30, 2019. Six hundred eligible prescriptions were selected from each hospital through a systematic random sampling technique. Results: The result of this study showed that both hospitals used standard prescriptions (100%). Age (99.0%) and name (94.7%) of patients were the most commonly recorded patient information while weight, address of patients and diagnosis were recorded only in 1.1%, 39.2% and 61.3% of the studied prescription papers, respectively. A total 2409 drugs were prescribed in the 1200 prescription papers and the percentage of encounters with injection(s) and antibacterial(s) was 9.0% and 42.6%, respectively. At each hospital, all drugs were prescribed from the Ethiopian essential drug list. Conclusion: The present study revealed the use of standard presecription papers at both hospitals. None of the patient-related information was completely written in all prescrptions. For drug-related information, only the name of the drug was written in all prescription papers. There is also a significant deviation from the acceptable WHO standard for prescribing antibiotics.

Background The rapidly spreading nature of Covid-19 virus associated with its high mortality and mortality rate is triggering an unprecedented public health crisis. The study assessed the availability, price, and affordability of medicines used in the management of Covid-19 in health facilities of Dessie town. Methods A retrospective cross-sectional study design was employed in the health facilities of Dessie town from September 1 to September 20, 2021. Data was collected using a standard checklist adopted from the Logistics Indicator Assessment Tool and WHO/HAI. WHO/HAI methodology was applied to select the surveyed health facilities (30) and medicines (44). The daily wage of the lowest-paid unskilled government worker is used to estimate affordability. Results Fifteen and five medicines were not found at all public and private health facilities, respectively. The originator brand (OB) and lowest price generic (LPG) availability in private health facilities was 2.03% and 51.33%, respectively. In the public sector, the availability of OB and LPG was 0% and 34.44%, respectively. In public and private health facilities, the mean number of stock-outs was 2.25 and 2.91, and the mean number of stock-out days was 177.83 and 106.16 days, respectively. Eight and one LPG medicines were out of stock in public and private health facilities, respectively. Eight (33.33%) and 6 (28.57%) had higher prices than international prices in private and public health facilities, respectively. The median price ratio in public and private health facilities ranged from 0.02 and 3.05 and 0.04 to 2.70, respectively. Eighty percent of the products were unaffordable in both sectors. Conclusions The availability of medicines was low. One-third of the medicines had higher prices than international prices. Eighty percent of the products were unaffordable. The regular supply of these medicines is crucial for better management of the disease.

Background: Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus have two to four times increased risk of cardiovascular events compared with those without diabetes. Anti-platelet therapy and lipid lowering therapies have a significant contribution to prevent primary cardiovascular disease to achieve optimal patient outcomes. Objective: This study aimed to assess the use of antiplatelet and lipid lowering agent therapies as primary cardiovascular disease prevention strategies and their determinant factors among type 2 diabetes mellitus patients in University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Gondar, Ethiopia. Methods: A prospective cross sectional study was conducted among 405 type 2 diabetes mellitus patients selected using a systematic random sampling method. Semi-structured questionnaire and data abstraction format were used for data collection. The data was collected from May 1 – July 30, 2022. The data was entered into Epidata version 3 and exported to SPSS version 25.0 statistical packages. Multivariable binary logistic regression analysis was done for identifying factors associated with use antiplatelet and lipid lowering agent. Statistical significance was declared at 95% confidence interval. Result:Out of 405 study participants, the majority of study participants 301 (74.3%) had low (<10%) 10-year cardiovascular disease risk and moderate risk was 75 (18.5%). Statin was used for 180 (44.4%) of the study participants. While 81mg aspirin was used for 38 participants. About 58.8% using statin appropriately while 89.9% of them using aspirin appropriately. Ages between 65 - 69 years old (AOR = 3.76, 95% CI: 1.33- 10.61), taking alcohol (AOR = 0.38, 95%: 0.23 - 0.64), being hypertensive (AOR = 2.30, 95%CI: 1.38-3.86) and using two or more glucose lowering agent (AOR = 4.60, 95%CI: 2.72- 7.78) were significantly associated with use of statin. On the other hand, use of more than one glucose lowering agent (AOR = 4.36, 95%CI: 1.64 - 11.61) and being hypertensive (AOR = 3.34, 95%CI: 1.24 - 8.96) were associated with the use of aspirin. Conclusion:The appropriate indication of lipid lowering agent was low. So, this population is at high potential risk for the development cardiovascular disease and predisposed to unwanted medication side effects. Also, aspirin was used for 10% of patients who were scored under high risk, which implicates these populations are at high risks for bleeding and Reye syndrome, despite the low benefit. These results emphasize the necessity of considering the cardiovascular disease risk of the patients and apply an appropriate measure for primary prevention.