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Compliance with short-term antibiotic therapy among patients attending primary health centres in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Department of Family and Community Medicine College of Medicine King Saud University PO Box 2925 Riyadh 11461 Saudi Arabia

T. Khoja, DPHC, MRCGP

General Directorate of Health Affairs PO Box 54647 Riyadh 11524 Saudi Arabia

M J M S Al-Yamani, PhD

Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, PO Box 2457 Riyadh 11451 Saudi Arabia

Non-compliance results in several undesired consequences. Admissions due to non-compliance have been estimated to account for up to 10.5% of all admissions to hospi tal. There seems to be very little data about compliance in Saudi Arabia.

The present study addressed the problem of non-compliance with short-term antibiotic therapy in patients attending Primary Health Centres (PHC). The data were collected from five different centres selected randomly from the 53 centres in the Riyadh area, Saudi Ara bia. A five-part questionnaire was designed and used to collect data. Different parts were required to be completed by patient, doctor, pharmacist and social worker. At the end of the study period 414 questionnaires were suitable for evaluation. Paediatric patients (< 15 years old) constituted 65.9% of the sample. Compliance was noted in 67.8%. Those who missed three doses or less and more than three doses were 22.7% and 9.4% respectively. Factors which appeared to enhance patient compliance were: parental involvement (p<0.001), un employment (p<0.01), absence of psychiatric illness (p<0.02) and early improvement of symptoms (p<0.05).

Reasons most frequently mentioned by patients for non-compliance were: rapid improve ment of symptoms, bitter taste of drug(s), forgetfulness and frequent dosing. These reasons accounted for 73.7% of reasons for non-compliance.

Our findings suggest that approximately two thirds of patients were compliant with their medications. It is also worth noting that approximately three quarters of patients were not compliant for reasons which could be minimised or removed by good patient counsel ling and effective communication with patients.

At least one third of the patients did not use their drugs appropriately. These findings suggest that the problem of non-compliance needs to be further evaluated in this part of the world.

The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, Vol. 115, No. 4, 231-234 (1995)
DOI: 10.1177/146642409511500407


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