Introduction: Rational use of drugs requires that patients receive medications appropriate to their clinical needs, in doses that meet their own individual requirements for an adequate period of time, at the lowest cost to them and their community. The issues of irrational use of medicines is global and that a global approach coordinated by WHO with more vigorous implementation of leadership and evidence based advocacy of rational use of medicine is essential Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive and quantitative study was conducted at Dilla University Referral Hospital to determine the current prescribing practices. 1440 prescription were selected using systematic random sampling and reviewed retrospectively for a 2-year period from from September 01/2016 to August 31/ 2018 using prescriptions and Prescription registry. Results: The average number of drugs prescribed per prescription was 1.813  ranging from 1 and 6. 1437(99.79%), 1287(89.38%), 1392 (96.67%), 1428 (99.17%) and 0(0%) of the analyzed prescriptions had name of the patient, date, medical record number, age and address of the patients respectively. Antibiotic and injection was prescribed in 842(58.47%) and 94(6.53%) of encounters respectively. The Percentage of drugs prescribed by generic name and from an essential drug list was 85.33% (n=2227) and 97.43% (n=2543), respectively. Of the total 2610 drugs, 2431(93.14%) drugs were actually dispensed. Conclusion: Polypharmacy, percentage of encounters with with injection and percentage of drugs from essential drug list was within acceptable range. The prescribing practice for antibiotics and generic medicines shows significant deviation from WHO. Keywords: Prescription auditing, WHO prescribing indicators,  Dilla University Referral Hospital.

Introduction: Obstetric complications continue to be the major causes of maternal mortality in low- and middle-income countries. Knowledge of women toward obstetric danger signs is an important part of improving maternal and fetal outcomes. However, the reported level of knowledge on obstetric danger signs is low and inconsistent. Methods: Community-based cross-sectional study design was used. Data were collected from randomly selected 740 pregnant women. A pregnant woman said to have good knowledge of obstetric danger signs if she spontaneously mentioned at least two of the danger signs during each of the three periods (pregnancy, labor/childbirth, and postpartum) and otherwise said to have poor knowledge of obstetric danger signs. Adjusted odds ratio at 95% confidence interval and a value of p < 0.05 were used to identify the predictors. Results: A total of 740 pregnant women participated in the study with the response rate of 97.5%. One hundred twenty-four (16.8%) of the respondents were knowledgeable about obstetric danger signs. According to our study, age range of 20–24 years (adjusted odds ratio = 6, confidence interval: 2.67–17.44) and 25–29 years old (adjusted odds ratio = 2.4, confidence interval: 1.14–5.10); being housewife (adjusted odds ratio = 0.5, confidence interval: 0.28–0.87); monthly income of ⩽1000ETB (adjusted odds ratio = 0.24, confidence interval: 0.12–0.46) and 1001-2500ETB (adjusted odds ratio = 0.24, confidence interval: 0.12–0.47); and primigravida (adjusted odds ratio = 0.09, confidence interval: 0.04–0.18) and primipara (adjusted odds ratio = 0.15, confidence interval: 0.07–0.30) were factors significantly associated with knowledge of obstetric danger signs. Conclusion: Knowledge of obstetric danger signs among pregnant women was low. Maternal age, average monthly income, maternal occupation, parity, and gravidity were factors significantly associated with the knowledge of obstetric danger signs.

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis (TB) now ranks alongside HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) as a leading cause of death worldwide. Globally, 9.6 million people were estimated to have fallen ill with TB in 2014. The aim of this study is to assess the knowledge and healthcare seeking behaviour of tuberculosis patents in Gimbi General Hospital, West Ethiopia.METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted among tuberculosis patients from March 8 to April 30, 2015. The data collection method was face-to-face interview through structuredstandard questionnaire. To identify the factors associated with knowledge about TB and healthcare seeking behavior, backward logistic regression analysis was used.RESULTS: Of the 138 TB patients, 85(61.6%) had good knowledge about TB while 53(38.4%) had poor knowledge about TB. On multivariable logistic analysis, poor knowledge about TB was more likely to occur among TB patients in intensive treatment phase (Adjusted odds ratio (AOR)=4.1, 95% CI= 1.7-9.6, p=0.001).CONCLUSION: TB patients had good knowledge on signs and symptoms of TB, transmission of TB and healthcare seeking behaviour of TB, but their knowledge on the cause of TB, treatment of TB and prevention of TB were not adequate. This study also revealed that the health careseeking behaviour of TB patients were good.

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