Abstract:

Background: Sharing of medicines refers to lending or borrowing medicines, this behavior can lead to a number of problems such as drug interactions, unanticipated adverse drug reactions and development of antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to assess attitude and practice of antimicrobial sharing among Nyamagana residents.

Methodology: A community based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in Nyamagana district in Mwanza, Tanzania. Multistage sampling method was used where by households were the final stage. A study population was 384 adult Nyamagana residents. Data were collected by using a closed ended questionnaire and analyzed by using SPSS version 20.

Results and Discussion: The overall towards antimicrobial medicine sharing among Nyamagana residents was positive with 78.4% having attitude (sharing is bad) and 21.6% having negative attitude. The prevalence of borrowing and lending antimicrobials was 18.8 and 12.2% respectively. This is nearly similar to the study done by Obol et al in Uganda.

Conclusion and Recommendations:, The overall attitude towards sharing of antimicrobials among Nyamagana residents was positive (78.4%) and a prevalence of sharing antimicrobials was 23.7%. antibiotics are the leading shared drugs and this necessities a call for more attention to be imposed on antibiotics use as well as further studies to be done to identify associated factors.