Critical Analysis of Antibiotic and Antimalarial Prescriptions

Given the irrational prescription and use of drugs and especially antibiotics and antimalarials, given also the scarcity of publications on the analysis of prescription of antibiotics and antimalarials in the Democratic Republic of Congo in general and the city of Lubumbashi in particular, we conducted a retrospective study on the critical analysis of medical prescriptions of antibiotics and antimalarials in children aged 0 to 5 years for a period from November 2015 to July 2016 at the University Clinics of Lubumbashi. This study covered 300 prescriptions containing at least one antibiotic and/or antimalarial drug for children aged 0 to 5 years. It emerged that 22% of the prescriptions contained the name of the prescriber. 14% of the prescriptions had the presence of the order number and 95% of the prescriptions contained the professional address of the prescribing physician. All the prescriptions contained the names of the patients, i.e. 100%, as well as their ages. The upper age bracket of 2 to 5 years was dominant, i.e. 42%; the female sex was in the majority, i.e. 50%. The β-lactam family was the most prescribed with a rate of 68%; followed by macrolides with 12%. While for antimalarial drugs the most represented family was Artemisinin and its derivatives with 77%. A large proportion of antibiotic prescriptions were in specialty with a rate of 42%, while most antimalarials were prescribed generically at around 66%, the duration of antibiotic treatment was absent in 53%.