انتشار استخدام الأدوية و أنماطها لدى الأطفال دون 12 عاما في إحدى مدارس دمشق

Abstract EN

Background: Irrational use of medicines poses a risk to children’s health due to the lack of awareness about the risks of uncontrolled use.

However, there is no data regarding the patterns of use of medicines among children.

The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and patterns of medicine use among a sample of 6-12 year-old Syrian children within a week.

Materials and Methods: A questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 6-12 year-old children (n = 388) in an elementary school in Damascus to be filled in by parents.

Results: A response rate of 98.2% (n = 381) was achieved.

The mean age was 9.36±1.89 and 53% were females.

Medicine intake in the preceding week was estimated by 30.2% with no significant differences in medicine intake among different age groups (P>0.236).

The prevalence of children who have used 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 medicines was 48.7%, 31.3%, 8.7%, 7% and 4.3% respectively.

Analgesics were the mostly used medicines (35.1%) followed by antibacterial drugs (24.2%) and drugs acting on the respiratory system (22.7%).

Regarding the pharmaceutical form, liquid oral medicines (syrups, suspensions,…etc.)were the most used (62.3%), followed by hard oral medicines (tablets, capsules, …etc) (23.5%), the use of liquid oral medicines was significantly higher among 6-8 year-old children when compared to 8-9 and 11-12 year-old children (P=0.004, P<0.001) respectively.60.2% of medicines used were based on a medical prescription, while 39.8% of medicines used were self medicated.

Self medication was estimated for analgesics, drugs acting on the respiratory system and antibacterials as 55.7%, 33.3% and 34% respectively.

Conclusion: One-third of children used medicines.

Analgesics were the most used medicines which were more often used without a medical prescription.

Fourty percent of medicines were self medicated which may pose children to unnecessary exposure to several medications.

Therefore, this research highlights the need to monitor the use of medicines among children as well as investigating the safety of analgesics specifically.