Background: Drug-drug interaction is an emerging threat to public health. Currently, there is an increase in comorbid disease, polypharmacy, and hospitalization in Ethiopia. Thus, the possibility of drug-drug interaction occurrence is high in hospitals. This study aims to summarize the prevalence of potential drug-drug interactions and associated factors in Ethiopian hospitals. Methods: A literature search was performed by accessing legitimate databases in PubMed/MEDLINE, Google Scholar, and Research Gate for English-language publications. To fetch further related topics advanced search was also applied in Science Direct and HINARI databases. The search was conducted on August 3 to 25, 2019. All published articles available online until the day of data collection were considered. Outcome measures were analyzed with Open Meta Analyst and CMA version statistical software. Der Simonian and Laird's random effect model, I 2 statistics, and Logit event rate were also performed. Results: A total of 14 studies remained eligible for inclusion in systematic review and meta-analysis. From the included studies, around 8717 potential drug-drug interactions were found in 3259 peoples out of 5761 patients. The prevalence of patients with potential drug-drug interactions in Ethiopian hospitals was found to be 72.2% (95% confidence interval: 59.1, 85.3%). Based on severity, the prevalence of major, moderate, and minor potential drugdrug interaction was 25.1, 52.8, 16.9%, respectively, also 1.27% for contraindications. The factors associated with potential drug-drug interactions were related to patient characteristics such as polypharmacy, age, comorbid disease, and hospital stay. Conclusions: There is a high prevalence of potential drug-drug interactions in Ethiopian hospitals. Polypharmacy, age, comorbid disease, and hospital stay were the risk factors associated with potential drug-drug interactions.

Poor prescribing pattern is observed and become a serious problem in the world including developing countries. In Ethiopia, several studies showed that health care institutions did not meet WHO prescribing indicators and the prescribing pattern is not satisfactory in the health care institutions. This study aimsto review the prescribing pattern of medications prescribed to outpatients based on WHO prescribing indicators in Ethiopia. Literature search was performed through PubMed/MEDLINE, Google Scholar, and Research Gate from July 5-30, 2019. A standard data extraction format was used to collect important data from the included studies. Open meta analyst advanced software was used for analyses of the pooled estimate of outcome measures and subgroup analysis. Der Simonian and Laird's random-effect models were applied for the analyses at 95% confidence level. I 2 statistics were used to assess heterogeneity of studies. The presence of publication bias was assessed with comprehensive meta-analysis version 3 software and presented with a funnel plot. P-value of less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. The results revealed that a total of 13 studies with 33,567 drugs from 15,305 prescriptions were included for systematic review and meta-analysis. The results of prescribing indicators were 1.96, 93.0, 36.2, 18.3 and 94.8% for average number of drugs per prescription, percentage of drugs prescribed by generic name, percentage of drugs encounter with antibiotics, percentage of drugs encounter with injection and for the percentage of medicines prescribed from essential drug list respectively. Therefore, the prescribing pattern of Ethiopia is below WHO standard level.

Objectives In Africa, antipsychotic polypharmacy is growing high due to a high antipsychotic dose prescribing, repeated psychiatric hospitalization, uncontrolled psychotic symptoms, and greater side effect burden. Therefore, the aim of this review and meta-analysis is to assess the prevalence and correlates of antipsychotic polypharmacy among patients with schizophrenia in Africa Methods A systematic search was performed from August 1 to 31, 2020 on PubMed, MEDLINE, Google Scholar and Science Direct databases to select articles based on the inclusion criteria. Meta-Analysis of Observational studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) guidelines were employed. Cross-sectional observational studies which report antipsychotic polypharmacy and/or its correlates in schizophrenia patients in English language published in a peer reviewed journals without time limits were included in the review. The quality of included articles was assessed using Newcastle-Ottawa quality assessment tool. Prevalence and correlates of antipsychotic polypharmacy were the outcome measures of this review and meta-analysis. Open Meta Analyst and RevMan version 5.3 software were used for meta-analysis. A random effect model was used to synthesize data based on the heterogeneity test. Results Six studies which involve 2,154 schizophrenia patients met the inclusion criteria in this review and meta-analysis. The quality of included studies ranges from 6.5 to 10 based in Newcastle-Ottawa quality assessment tool. The pooled prevalence of antipsychotic polypharmacy among patients with schizophrenia was 40.6% with 95% confidence interval: 27.6% to 53.7%. Depot First Generation Antipsychotics and oral First Generation Antipsychotics were the most commonly prescribed antipsychotic polypharmacy combinations. Socio-demographic, clinical and antipsychotic treatment characterstics were significantly associated with antipsychotic polypharmacy. There was a wide variation in the correlates of antipsychotic polypharmacy assessed by studies and the way that association/correlations was determined and reported. Conclusions Antipsychotic polypharmacy is common and highly prevalent. Advanced age, male gender, longer duration of schizophrenia, hospital admission and longer antipsychotic treatment were correlates of antipsychotic polypharmacy in Africa.

Introduction The role of community pharmacy professionals has been expanded to patient care and health promotion service globally. However, in Ethiopia, there is a scanty of data on the issue, although the country is dealing with a double burden of non-communicable and communicable diseases. Objectives This study aimed to assess community pharmacy professionals’ willingness, involvement, beliefs, and barriers to offer extended services for health promotion in Injibara town, Amhara, Ethiopia. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among licensed and registered community pharmacy professionals working in Injibara town from June 25 to July 10, 2022. A structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. The data were presented using descriptive statistics. The data were analyzed using STATA version 16 software. Results A total of 24 community pharmacy professionals were involved in the study, with a response rate of 92.3%. Approximately 91.7% of them were involved in health promotional services. Of them, 54.1% were willing and strongly believed that their involvement in health promotion services would have a positive impact on promoting health. A total of 60.9% of the community pharmacy professionals reported that they were very involved in family planning and alcohol consumption counseling. Different barriers to not providing health promotion services were also cited. Conclusions Majority of community pharmacy professionals in this study is involved in health promotional services but there are also barriers on their involvement. Therefore, governmental strategies to overcome the barriers that hamper their involvement should be designed.

Background and Objectives. Traditional healers are an integral part of healthcare systems in many countries, including Ethiopia, where traditional medicine is widely practiced. They often employ unique medicinal preparation and route of administration that may differ from modern practices. However, there is a paucity of data on dosage forms and route of administration practice by traditional healers in Ethiopia. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of traditional healers towards different dosage forms and route of administration. Methods. A cross-sectional study design was conducted on 70 traditional healers from June 1, 2022 to July 25, 2022. The data were collected through structured questionnaires. The data were checked for completeness and consistency and then entered into SPSS version 25.0 for analysis. The results were presented with frequencies and percentages. The association between sociodemographic factors and traditional healers’ knowledge of dosage forms and route of administration was determined using the Pearson’s chi-squares test. A statistically significant difference was declared if the p value was 0.05 or lower. Results. Most (58.1%) traditional healers had information on dosage forms, especially about solid, semisolid, and liquid dosage forms. In addition, 33 (53.2%) traditional healers had information about rectal, nasal, and oral route of administration. All traditional healers had practiced different dosage forms and route of administration both individually and in combination earlier to date. More than half of the participants agreed on the need for different dosage forms and route of administration. This study result also showed that most (72.6%) traditional healers had gaps in sharing experiences and information with other healers and health professionals. Conclusions. The current study revealed that solid, semisolid, and liquid were the most frequently formulated dosage forms with oral, rectal, and nasal route of administration by traditional healers. The practice of checking the status of the formulations was poor. Traditional healers had a good attitude towards the need for different dosage forms and route of administration. The stakeholders should provide continuous training and exchange of experiences between traditional healers and healthcare professionals to improve the knowledge of traditional healers for appropriate use of dosage forms and route of administration.