ArticlePharmacy practice
Management of musculoskeletal pain in retail drug outlets within a Nigerian community: a descriptive study.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Pharmaceutical Interventions in Self-Medication, Focus on Requests in Dentistry : A Descriptive Study in Community Pharmacies in the Auvergne Region, France.International dental journal · 2025Article
- Self-medication with NSAIDs and purchase of branded and over-the-counter medicines: Analysis of a national survey in Peru.Journal of public health research · 2025Article
- Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug use by patients: Impact of modular educational training on pharmacists' questioning, counselling and risk assessments.Exploratory research in clinical and social pharmacy · 2024Article
- Evolving role of pharmacy technicians in pharmaceutical care services: Involvement in counselling and medication reviews.Exploratory research in clinical and social pharmacy · 2022Article
- An assessment of nursing mothers' and young people's access to proprietary and patent medicine vendors' services in rural communities of south-eastern Nigeria: implication for review of national drug policy.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2021Article
- Self-medication practice with analgesics (NSAIDs and acetaminophen), and antibiotics among nursing undergraduates in University College Farasan Campus, Jazan University, KSA.Annales pharmaceutiques francaises · 2021Article
- Article
- An investigation of the views and practices of Australian community pharmacists on pain and fever management and clinical guidelines.Pharmacy practiceArticle
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThis work aimed to describe attitudes and practices of both community pharmacies and patent and proprietary medicine vendor (PPMV) outlets towards over-the-counter (OTC) analgesic use for musculoskeletal pain states within Zaria, Nigeria.
methodsThe study was carried out in 2 phases from May to August 2016. Phase one was a cross-sectional survey of 40 retail drug outlets (10 community pharmacies and 30 PPMVs). A simulated patient scenario of a young adult male complaining of acute onset back pain was used to collect data on the type and quality of analgesic recommended, duration of consultation, as well as nature of information provided during the drug dispensing process. The second phase involved semi structured interviews with 7 drug vendors (4 pharmacists and 3 patent medicine vendors). The interviewees were asked questions to assess their knowledge of analgesics as well as what type of analgesic they would recommend in three hypothetical patient scenarios.
resultsA wide variety of therapeutic agents were recommended for the simulated patient. Majority of these drugs were oral analgesics and contained NSAIDS either alone or in combination. Less than half of both patent medicine outlets and pharmacies (26.7% and 40% respectively) provided the simulated patient with information on duration of therapy, and asked the patient questions about their past medical and medication history (30% and 33.3% respectively). All analgesics purchased from the pharmacies were registered with the Nigerian drug regulatory agency and had expiry dates compared to only 66.7% and 90% of those bought from patent medicine outlets. Interviewed drug vendors admitted to obtaining a large amount of their knowledge on analgesics from drug information leaflets and prior learning. They also showed some knowledge deficits when questioned on side effects of analgesics and appropriate drug selection in the hypothetical scenarios.
conclusionsThere are problems with both the OTC analgesics recommended, and the counselling provided for these medicines by drug vendors within the Zaria community. While both pharmacies and patent medicine outlets had shortcomings in several of the areas assessed by the simulated patient, the pharmacies performed better.
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