Bule Hora
Pharmacy
S Background: Prescribing drugs to pregnant women requires the balancing benefits and risks. Only a small proportion of drugs are known to be harmful to the fetus, but for the vast majority of drugs little evidence of fetal safety exist.... more
S Background: Prescribing drugs to pregnant women requires the balancing benefits and risks. Only a small proportion of drugs are known to be harmful to the fetus, but for the vast majority of drugs little evidence of fetal safety exist. Objective: To assess the pattern of drug prescribing and its potential fetal harm among pregnant women in Bishoftu General Hospital, Oromia region, Ethiopia. Methods: All drug prescriptions of pregnant women prescribed from March, 2013 to March, 2014 were reviewed retrospectively using structured data collection format. Result: A total of 262 pregnant women prescriptions were in included in the study. The average maternal age in the study was 27.37 years. The rates of first trimester, second trimester and third trimester pregnancy term were 69 (26.34%), 112 (42.75%) and 81 (30.91%), respectively. The average numbers of drugs prescribed per pregnant women was found to be 1.63. To prevent anemia and vitamin deficiency in pregnancy 241(91.98%) was the most common reason for medicine usage followed by to alleviate pains 45(17.17%). Mineral and vitamin 241 (56.31 %) were the most frequently prescribed drugs followed by antibiotics 60(14.02 %) and analgesics 45(10.51 %). Out of 428 drugs prescribed, 62.85% were FDA drug risk category A, 20.56% category B, 11.68% category C, 3.27% category D and 1.64% to category X. Conclusion: Iron and folic acid were the most frequently prescribed drugs. Prescription pattern during pregnancy in the hospital is encouraging except few drugs.
The demand for herbal medicine is increasing as herbs are less toxic, affordable, and culturally acceptable than the conventional drugs in developing countries. Thus, the increase in demand for standardization to ensure safety, purity and... more
The demand for herbal medicine is increasing as herbs are less toxic, affordable, and culturally acceptable than the conventional drugs in developing countries. Thus, the increase in demand for standardization to ensure safety, purity and quality of medicinal plant. Standardization is a process of confirming herbal medicine identity and determination of its quality and purity. It involves botanical, physical, chemical and biological evaluations. These require application of different analytical methods and tools for standardization and phytochemical investigation of medicinal plants. The aim of this review is to explore analytical methods used for standardization of medicinal plants. A comprehensive web based literature review is employed in order to retrieve relevant information using international scientific databases including PubMed, Science direct, Web of Science, Google scholar. The review of selected 34 original published research articles were evaluated and summarized. The result this review showed that several analytical methods are employed and developed for standardization including chromatographic, TLC, GC, HPTLC and HPLC fingerprints, spectroscopic; UV, Fluorescence, MS, FT-IR, AAS and NMR are commonly applied techniques for different analytical purposes which are mainly used in physicochemical and phytochemical characterization of medicinal plants. Gel electrophoresis and DNA fingerprint are also applicable for botanical identification. The choice of analytical methods may depend on phytochemical, physicochemical nature of medicinal plant, selectivity and accuracy of analytical method. Development of selective analytical method is recommended for pesticide and Alfa toxin analysis to further ensure safety, quality and for complete standardization of medicinal plants.
- by Baresa Ayana and +1
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- Medicinal Chemistry