Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

A decade of experience in prescribing hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin: A retrospective analysis of medication queries in a Saudi drug and poison information center

Abdullah U Althemery¹ , Amal Hassan AL-Najjar², Mesfer S Almalki², Abdullah A Alfaifi¹, Nehad J Ahmed¹

¹Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj 11942; ²Drug and Poison Information Specialist, Pharmacy Services, Security Forces Hospital Program, Riyadh 11481, Saudi Arabia.

For correspondence:- Abdullah Althemery Email: a.althemery@psau.edu.sa Tel:+966115886051

Accepted: 24 April 2021 Published: 31 May 2021

Citation: Althemery AU, AL-Najjar AH, Almalki MS, Alfaifi AA, Ahmed NJ. A decade of experience in prescribing hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin: A retrospective analysis of medication queries in a Saudi drug and poison information center. Trop J Pharm Res 2021; 20(5):1049-1054 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v20i5.23

© 2021 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To analyze drug information queries related to treatment with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), chloroquine (CQ), and azithromycin submitted to a local drug and poison information center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Methods: This retrospective study explored HCQ-, CQ-, and azithromycin-related inquiries submitted to the Drug and Poison Information Center at the Security Forces Hospital Program, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. These inquiries were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative analysis included the frequency of each request per year, the profession of the requesters, and the source material classification. A thematic analysis was also performed to categorize requests from healthcare professionals.

Results: The Drug and Poison Information Center received 10,685 usable inquiries between 2005 and 2018. There were 160 CQ-, HCQ-, and azithromycin-related queries. Most requests were made by pharmacists (61.25 %). The main sources used to answer the queries were tertiary (92.31 %) and primary (7.69 %) sources. In the dataset, three major topics were identified: administration and dosing, safety, and pregnancy and lactation, each associated with a query subset.

Conclusion: These results emphasize the importance of continued education on antimicrobial agents in general, and HCQ, CQ, and azithromycin in particular. The three items have been identified as focus areas that policymakers can us to ensure the quality of future medication prescriptions.

Keywords: Hydroxychloroquine, Chloroquine, Azithromycin, COVID-19 treatment, Drug information queries, Antimicrobial agent