Mefloquine side effects profile among a sample of Jordanian military personnel served in Afghanistan

Abstract EN

Objective : to determine the side effects and compliance with Mefloquine prophylaxis among a sample of Jordanian military personnel served outside their country.

Methods: Three hundred out of 372 male military personnel, with age range between 23-45 years, served in Afghanistan, during the year 2002, were assessed at the end of three months service using a three part- self-administrative questionnaire developed purposefully for the study.

The questionnaire covered a wide range of Mefloquine adverse reactions.

It was first distributed to 15 medical professionals and lay people served in the mission area to assess its content and wordings.

Results : it was found that 139 subjects out of 300(53.6 %) experienced side effects of Mefloquine.

Headache (48.2 %), insomnia (39.6 %), abdominal distention (39.6 %), fatigue (34.5 %) and nausea (30.2 %) were the most frequent side effects experienced by this group.

Over a three month period 277 (92 %) took 10-15, 13(4.3 %) had 5-9 tablets and 10(3.3 %) received less than 5 tablets.

The degree of satisfaction with Mefloquine represented as follows : 12 % very poor, 8.3% poor, 18 % satisfied, 37 % moderately satisfied and 24.7 % were very highly satisfied.

Side effects severity was rated as mild to moderate and transient in the majority of cases.

Conclusion : troop's education about the importance of Mefloquine prophylaxis and its side effects is an important issue which helped both the personnel and health care providers to be aware of side effects and to tackle problems as early as possible.