No abstract

Life as a medical student is often full of stress which could be physical, social, emotional and economical, especially in developing countries. Of recent, there has been an increased effort to combat self-medication which has remained a global public health burden since antiquity. Trainee health workers are particularly vulnerable to engage in self-medication practice which has remain a great panacea mitigating the efforts to combat resistance to common antibiotics in communities. This study aims to assess antibiotics self-medication among undergraduate medical students in Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi Nigeria. An exploratory cross-sectional study was conducted at college of medical sciences Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi between June and July 2018. First and second year registered undergraduate medical students were specifically enrolled in the study. A sample size of 61 participants was determined by using a single population proportion formula and a close ended 25 items self-administered study tool was developed and piloted following a review of the relevant literature. All responses were analyzed using SPSS Version 21 and STATA Version 13 software for statistical analysis. A total of Eighty-one (81) medical Students were enrolled in the study. There were 39 (48.1%) males and 42 (51.9%) females. The median age among all respondents was 20 years. 41% of all the students reported having selfmedication. (22) 27.2% of the respondent’s reasons for self-medication was “Doctors gives same drug”, for (20) 24.7% “the disease was mild”, while (16) 19.7% “knew the drug to take”, while (9) 11.1% “saves time” in self-medication and (2) 2.5% said it “saved cost”. On logistic regression, gender remains the statistically significant explanatory variable, Wald Chi-square test 6.050 odds ratio 2.019 (P-value: 0.0014). The prevalence of SM among medical students is high in among Medical Students in ATBU Bauchi Nigeria. Targeted campaign programs to decrease SM among medical students in North East Nigeria as a whole, are required. Enforcement of laws and policies on un-prescribed drugs and continuous monitoring of dispensaries/drugstores and other outlets to issue drugs only on prescription are necessary to reduce self-medication.

About a third of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive population worldwide is co-infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. However, data are lacking about the prevalence of HIV among patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) in a teaching hospital in Bauchi, northeast Nigeria. The aim of this study is to determine the sero-prevalence of HIV among patients with sputum smear positive PTB at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (ATBUTH), Bauchi, Bauchi State, Nigeria. This is a retrospective study review of patients’ medical records diagnosed with sputum smear positive PTB that attended and received treatment at directly observed treatment short course (DOTS) clinic of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (ATBUTH), Bauchi, Bauchi State, North-Eastern Nigeria from January, 2015- December, 2017. All the patients were newly diagnosed with sputum smear positive PTB using ZN stain testing of their sputum and screened for HIV antibodies. There were 155 patients studied comprising of 95 (61.29%) males and 60 (38.71%) females. One hundred and twenty (77.42%) patients were seronegative and 35 (22.58%) sero-positive for HIV. Most of the patients were within the ages of 15-54 years with mean age of 34.63±15.55. The sero-prevalence of HIV infection among the patients is 22.58%. Sero-prevalence of HIV is observed to be high among young and married patients with secondary level of education. The sero-prevalence of HIV infection among the patients is relatively lower than those reported in most parts of Nigeria and the sub-Saharan Africa, hence there is still need for continued screening of HIV antibodies among patients with PTB so as to reduce the morbidity and mortality that may result from the coinfection.

No abstract