This study aims to assess the knowledge and practice of PPs towards the risk of medication use during pregnancy.
A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was carried out over practicing community and hospital pharmacy professionals in Dessie town. Researchers utilized both descriptive and analytical statistics. For descriptive analysis, results were expressed as numbers, percentages, and mean.
Seventy-six pharmacy professionals in Dessie, Northeast Ethiopia, took part in the study. Most of the respondents believed that amoxicillin is safe in all trimesters. Twenty-six participants knew that isotretinoin is unsafe for use by pregnant women. About dietary supplements, 32.9% of PPs reported that Vitamin A supplements are safe in all trimesters. There was a significant difference observed for study college and years of experience of the PPs in their score of knowledge test. Additionally, there was a difference seen for gender, study college, and working institutions regarding pregnant women.
Overall, PPs exhibited shallow knowledge about drug safety during pregnancy. The absence of compulsory continuing pharmacy education for pharmacists is expected to have negatively affected medication knowledge and consequently the pharmaceutical care services delivered in community and hospital pharmacies.
Reference: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jp/2019/2186841/