Background: Drug-drug interaction is an emerging threat to public health. Currently, there is an increase in comorbid disease, polypharmacy, and hospitalization in Ethiopia. Thus, the possibility of drug-drug interaction occurrence is high in hospitals. This study aims to summarize the prevalence of potential drug-drug interactions and associated factors in Ethiopian hospitals. Methods: A literature search was performed by accessing legitimate databases in PubMed/MEDLINE, Google Scholar, and Research Gate for English-language publications. To fetch further related topics advanced search was also applied in Science Direct and HINARI databases. The search was conducted on August 3 to 25, 2019. All published articles available online until the day of data collection were considered. Outcome measures were analyzed with Open Meta Analyst and CMA version statistical software. Der Simonian and Laird's random effect model, I 2 statistics, and Logit event rate were also performed. Results: A total of 14 studies remained eligible for inclusion in systematic review and meta-analysis. From the included studies, around 8717 potential drug-drug interactions were found in 3259 peoples out of 5761 patients. The prevalence of patients with potential drug-drug interactions in Ethiopian hospitals was found to be 72.2% (95% confidence interval: 59.1, 85.3%). Based on severity, the prevalence of major, moderate, and minor potential drugdrug interaction was 25.1, 52.8, 16.9%, respectively, also 1.27% for contraindications. The factors associated with potential drug-drug interactions were related to patient characteristics such as polypharmacy, age, comorbid disease, and hospital stay. Conclusions: There is a high prevalence of potential drug-drug interactions in Ethiopian hospitals. Polypharmacy, age, comorbid disease, and hospital stay were the risk factors associated with potential drug-drug interactions.

Background: Patients are frequently provided with medicine information materials (MIMs). Rendering medicine information through written material is a reliable method. Readability is an important attribute of written material that can affect the reader's ability to comprehend. Patient's perception can also affect the comprehensibility of written MIMs. Objective: The objectives of the study were to assess the readability of medicine information in Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital (TASH); and assessing patients' perception and understanding of medicine information materials. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted from September 21, 2019 to November 24, 2020, at TASH. Quantitative and qualitative data collection approaches were used in this research. The readability value of each material was determined in accordance with the Flesch Reading ease scores (FRE) and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL). The tools compute readability based on an average number of syllables per word and an average number of words per sentence. FRE provides scores from 0 to 100; higher scores mean easily comprehensible while FKGL sets grade levels for written texts. A structured interview was administered with questions about how MIMs had been used, and was analyzed qualitatively. Results: The results of this research showed low readability scores of MIMs found in TASH. Most patients do not get MIMs and are unaware of how to use them. They are interested to receive and read medicines information from pharmacists and physicians. Moreover, most of them preferred information through both verbal and written forms. Conclusion: The readability levels of selected MIMs obtained from TASH are found to be not compliant with the patients' needs. This might be worsening their health outcomes and resulting in poorer use of healthcare services.

Background A very few number of studies are available regarding the evaluation of potential drug- drug interactions in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is also a problem in Ethiopian health care system. Now a days, in Ethiopia polypharmacy is increased due to comorbid conditions in the hospital health care system, a large number of patients are treated in the outpatient setting and also hospitalized and there is a high possibility for drug- drug interactions. Therefore, this study aims to summarize the prevalence of potential drug- drug interactions and associated factors in hospitals, both among hospitalized patients and outpatients in Ethiopia.Method Literature search was performed through accessing legitimate databases in PubMed/MEDLINE, Google Scholar and Research Gate for English-language publications. Advanced search strategies were applied in Science Direct and HINARI to identify any additional papers and published reviews and to retrieve relevant findings closely related to prevalence of potential drug- drug interactions and associated factors with it. The search was conducted from August 22-25, 2019 and all published and unpublished articles available online until the day of data collection were considered.Results A total of 14 studies were included for systematic review and meta-analysis. From 14 studies, 5761 patients were included and a total of 8717 potential drug- drug interactions were found in 3259 of patients. The prevalence patients with potential drug- drug interactions in Ethiopian Hospitals were found to be 72.2% (95% confidence interval: 59.1%, 85.3%). Based on severity, the prevalence of potential drug- drug interactions were 25.1%, 52.8%, 16.9% and 1.27% for major, moderate, minor potential drug- drug interactions and contraindications respectively. The factors associated with potential drug- drug interactions were related to patient characteristics such as polypharmacy, age, comorbid disease and hospital stay.Conclusion There is a high prevalence of potential drug- drug interactions in Ethiopian Hospitals. From this the most prevalent drug- drug interactions were moderate severity, 52.8%. Polypharmacy, age, comorbid disease and hospital stay were the risk factors associated with potential drug- drug interactions.

Background: Drug-drug interaction is an emerging threat to public health. Currently, there is an increase in comorbid disease, polypharmacy, and hospitalization in Ethiopia. Thus, the possibility of drug-drug interaction occurrence is high in hospitals. This study aims to summarize the prevalence of potential drug-drug interactions and associated factors in Ethiopian hospitals.Methods: A literature search was performed by accessing legitimate databases in PubMed/MEDLINE, Google Scholar, and Research Gate for English-language publications. To fetch further related topics advanced search was also applied in Science Direct and HINARI databases. The search was conducted on August 3 to 25, 2019. All published articles available online until the day of data collection were considered. Outcome measures were analyzed with Open Meta Analyst and CMA version statistical software. Der Simonian and Laird’s random effect model, I2 statistics, and Logit event rate were also performed.Results: A total of 14 studies remained eligible for inclusion in systematic review and meta-analysis. From the included studies, around 8,717 potential drug-drug interactions were found in 3,259 peoples out of 5,761 patients. The prevalence of patients with potential drug-drug interactions in Ethiopian hospitals was found to be 72.2% (95% confidence interval: 59.1%, 85.3%). Based on severity, the prevalence of major, moderate, and minor potential drug-drug interaction was 25.1%, 52.8%, 16.9%, respectively, also 1.27% for contraindications. The factors associated with potential drug-drug interactions were related to patient characteristics such as polypharmacy, age, comorbid disease, and hospital stay.Conclusions: There is a high prevalence of potential drug-drug interactions in Ethiopian hospitals. Polypharmacy, age, comorbid disease, and hospital stay were the risk factors associated with potential drug-drug interactions.

Background: Drug-drug interaction is an emerging threat to the public health. In Ethiopia, there is high possibility of occurrence of drug-drug interactions in the hospitals. This is because of increased comorbid disease, increased polypharmacy, and increased hospitalization. Therefore, this study aims to summarize the prevalence of potential drug-drug interactions and associated factors in Ethiopian hospitals. Methods: Literature search was performed through accessing legitimate databases in PubMed/MEDLINE, Google Scholar and Research Gate for English-language publications. Advanced search strategies were applied in Science Direct and HINARI to identify any additional papers and published reviews and to retrieve relevant findings closely related to prevalence of potential drug- drug interactions and associated factors with it. The search was conducted from August 3-25, 2019 and all published articles available online until the day of data collection were considered. The pooled estimate of the outcome measure were analyzed by Open Meta Analyst advanced software. By considering clinical heterogeneity among original studies, Der Simonian and Laird’s random effect model were used. I2 statistics were used to assess heterogeneity among each studies. The publication bias was assessed by CMA version-3 software and presented with funnel plot of standard error and precision with Logit event rate. Results: A total of 14 studies were included for systematic review and meta-analysis. From 14 studies, 5761 patients were included and a total of 8717 potential drug- drug interactions were found in 3259 of patients. The prevalence patients with potential drug- drug interactions in Ethiopian Hospitals were found to be 72.2% (95% confidence interval: 59.1%, 85.3%). Based on severity, the prevalence of potential drug- drug interactions were 25.1%, 52.8%, 16.9% and 1.27% for major, moderate, minor potential drug- drug interactions and contraindications respectively. The factors associated with potential drug- drug interactions were related to patient characteristics such as polypharmacy, age, comorbid disease and hospital stay. Conclusions: There is a high prevalence of potential drug- drug interactions in Ethiopian Hospitals. Polypharmacy, age, comorbid disease and hospital stay were the risk factors associated with potential drug- drug interactions.