Abstract:

Background: Global antibiotic consumption is a fast growing figure and it is largely accelerated by the ease of availability of these agents over the counter especially in LMICs. Coupled with poor consumer knowledge, this practice results to increasing and unnecessary health, economic and environmental hazards. This study focused on establishing types and quantities of most commonly stored antibiotics at household level and predictors for their storage.

Methodology: This is a cross-sectional study involving a structured questionnaire and a checklist. A total of 332 households from Igogo, Mbugani and Kirumba wards were involved in the study. Collected data was entered into excel sheet for cleaning and analysed using STATA version 13. P value or equal to 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: Of the 332 visited households, 175 had at least one medication at the time of the visit. 135 of these had antibiotics. The most common stored antibiotics were metronidazole and co-trimoxazole. The total amount of antibiotics found was about 600g and presence of a family member with any chronic illness was found to be the only predictor for antibiotic storage.

Conclusion: A total of about 600g of antibiotics were found at households at the time of the visit. Most common antibiotics were metronidazole and co-trimoxazole. An association was establishing between presence of antibiotics and storage of antibiotics.