Awareness Raising Results of Appropriate Drug Use in Tha Lad Community, Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Thailand

Abstract

Background: Safety problem of drug misuse in communities in Thailand, some of which comes from illegal sites that are scattered throughout the communities, especially, groceries in villages. However, educating and raising awareness among the sellers in groceries may have a result in reducing problem.

Objectives: This study aimed to compare the drug knowledge of grocery owners before and after education, explore the prevalence of inappropriate drug distribution and drug types that are available in the groceries, and study the occurrence of adverse drug reactions.

Methods: This study was a pre-post intervention study. A sample group of 84 participants was all grocery owners in Tha Lad Sub-district, Chum Phuang District, Nakhon Ratchasima Province. They were used to raise awareness about proper use of drug for two hours by training on drug knowledge, legal type of drug prohibited drug and drug that can be sold in groceries, using the drug according to indications, dosage and precautions, medication in special patients, and drug storage. Comparative knowledge scores were measured before and after one month of the training. Besides, it discovered an inappropriate drug distribution in the groceries before and after training with a period of one month apart, and monitored the occurrence of adverse drug reactions from January to March 2021.   

Results: The 84 grocery owners were females 72.6% of the time, had average age of 51.56 years, and the majority of them (94.1%) were retail stores. The sources that received drugs for distribution came from pharmacies, wholesale stores, and drug sale vehicles at 59.5, 32.1, and 8.3%, respectively. Before the training, it was found that 76.2% of grocery owners had medicine knowledge at a moderate level and 7.1% in a high level, then after the training, they reached a high level of 57.1%. It was a statistically significant by p-value<0.001. Their knowledge rose from 7.8 to 10.5 scores of a full 20. Significant increased knowledge topics included the types of drug that are allowed and prohibited solely in grocery stories, reading drug registration number and dangerous drug labels, reading drug expiration date, using antibiotic drug, using drug for pregnant and lactation woman, and proper drug storage. The grocery survey showed that inappropriateness drug decreased statistically significant from 61.9 to 46.4%, (p-value<0.001). The types of drug that were problems and still available in the grocery stories included dangerous drug, antibiotic drug, and traditional medicine. Finally, there were no adverse drug event reported during January - March 2021.Conclusions: The results of raising awareness of drugs were able to help the grocery store owners increased drug knowledge statistically significant and also decreased inappropriate drug selling in groceries. However, to improve appropriate drug use in the communities, grocery owners should receive continues and consistent training in drug knowledge; people should be educated on rational drug use to raise awareness, communities should be involved in the formulation of measures to solve the problems; and government agencies should play a role in enforcing the law.