Abstract:

Background: Medication sharing is defined as giving or borrowing of medication to someone or taking someone else medication. Prescription medicine borrowing and sharing is behavior that has been identified in patients of all ages. This behavior is recognized by medical researchers and government health authorities as a potential risk factor in adverse drug events and development of drug resistance.

Methodology: a community based cross section was conducted among Urambo residents in Urambo district Tabora Tanzania to assess altitude and practice of antimicrobial medicine. Random selection of participants was involved and sample was collected by passing to their household. Sample size was 384 residents. A self-administered questionnaire was used to obtain information from participants.

Results and discussion: information from a sample of 384 residents were analyzed by SPSS version 20. Median age of participants was 29.0 with a range of 18-65 years. From those residents who participated 180 (46.9%) had positive attitude toward antimicrobial sharing while 204 (53.1%) had negative attitude. Among all respondents 70.1% reported they would ever borrow someone’s antimicrobial for any reason in the future and 44.8% reported having ever borrowed antimicrobial medicine from someone else’s

Conclusion and recommendation: results of this demonstrate that antimicrobial medicine sharing is more common and majority of participant had poor attitude toward ant microbial sharing. General practitioner and other health professionals should be proactive in helping patients managing their prescription medicine safely.