Medication prescribing pattern and potential teratogenicity risk among pregnant women at Hidar 11 General Hospital, south Wollo, northeast Ethiopia

Abstract

Drugs given to pregnant mothers for therapeutic purposes may cause serious structural and functional adverse effects in the developing child. However, the fact that drugs are needed to mitigate complications during pregnancy cannot be totally avoided. Hence, the current study is aimed to evaluate the pattern of medication prescribing practice during pregnancy at Hidar 11 General Hospital, Ethiopia. Institution based cross sectional study was conducted on 310 pregnant women whose medical charts were selected using systematic random sampling from antenatal care (ANC) attendants at Hidar 11 General Hospital. Data was collected through medical chart review by using data abstraction tool and analyzed by statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) Version 24 software. Among the study participants, 263 (84.8%) had a prescription at least for one drug during their pregnancy. Majority of the drugs prescribed for the pregnant women were vitamins and minerals (60.6%), antibacterial agents (30.6%) and central nervous system drugs (28.4%). A high proportion of drugs were prescribed from US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) category C (57.7%) followed by category B (50.6%) and category A (22.9%). Only 6.8% of the prescribed drugs were with positive evidence of risk (US FDA category D) during all trimesters and no drugs were prescribed from proven fetal risk category (US FDA X category). Even though, drugs from category X were not prescribed, a significant number of pregnant women consumed drugs with potential fetal risk that should be addressed by informing the prescribers to stick to the treatment guidelines and seek safer options.