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International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy

, Volume 34, Issue 5, pp 719–727 | Cite as

Drug use before and during pregnancy in Serbia

  • Marina Odalovic
  • Sandra Vezmar Kovacevic
  • Katarina Ilic
  • Ana Sabo
  • Ljiljana TasicEmail author
Research Article
First Online:

Abstract

Background Observation of drug use patterns during pregnancy is necessary for the recognition of potential bad practices and improvement of safe drug use in pregnancy. Objective To investigate prescription and over the counter drug use among Serbian women in the 6 months before pregnancy and in the first 6 months of pregnancy, and to evaluate the drugs used according to the risk to a fetus. Setting Six maternity care units and five community pharmacies Method A multi-center study was performed in Serbia during the period from March 2009–March 2010. A self-reporting questionnaire was used as a data source. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) risk classification system was used to determine the risk of used drugs for the fetus. Differences between subgroups were assessed using McNemar’s test on paired proportions. Main outcome measure Proportion of women exposed to drugs or class of drugs. Results The overall drug exposure was higher in pregnancy (34.7 %) than before pregnancy (29.9 %), p > 0.05, in the cohort of 311 pregnant women. A significantly greater prescription drug use, 19.0 versus 27.3 % of women, p < 0.05, and less selfmedication with over the counter drugs in pregnancy, 15.1 versus 8.7 %, p < 0.05, were observed. Commonly used drugs were musculoskeletal drugs, analgesics/antipyretics and respiratory system drugs before pregnancy (13.8, 12.5, and 6.4 % of women, respectively), and progestogens, analgesics/antipyretics, and antibiotics for the systemic use in pregnancy (9.0, 7.7, and 7.4 %, respectively). A greater exposure to drugs belonging to the FDA risk category A (3.9 vs. 60.8 %, p < 0.05), B (18.0 vs. 19.6 %, p > 0.05), C (10.0 vs. 10.3 %, p > 0.05) and D (2.9 vs. 10.9 %, p < 0.05), as well as less exposure to drugs belonging to category X (0.3 vs. 0 %, p > 0.05) were observed in pregnancy. Folic acid was used by 60.8 % of women in pregnancy, and by only 3.9 % before pregnancy. Conclusion Besides higher overall drug use in pregnancy than before pregnancy, particularly the use of progestogens, and, subsequently, D category drugs, less selfmedication with over the counter drugs was observed in pregnancy. Insufficient use of folic acid before pregnancy requires public health service activities.

Keywords

Drug use FDA pregnancy risk classification OTC medication Pregnancy Serbia 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to the Associate Professor Natasa Bogavac Stanojevic, the University of Belgrade-Faculty of Pharmacy for her useful comments in the statistical analysis, to the Associate Professor Hedvig Nordeng, School of Pharmacy, the University of Oslo, for her comments and to Mr. David Jones and Mrs. Zorica Bogdanovic for editing of the English. We are grateful to all the mothers, nurses and pharmacists who participated and cooperated in this study.

Funding

This work is supported by the Ministry of Education and Science, Republic of Serbia, Project No. 41012, and Project No. 175064, 2011-2014.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  • Marina Odalovic
    • 1
  • Sandra Vezmar Kovacevic
    • 2
  • Katarina Ilic
    • 3
  • Ana Sabo
    • 4
  • Ljiljana Tasic
    • 1
    Email author
  1. 1.Department of Social Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Legislation, Faculty of PharmacyThe University of BelgradeBelgradeSerbia
  2. 2.Department of Pharmacokinetics and Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of PharmacyThe University of BelgradeBelgradeSerbia
  3. 3.Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of PharmacyThe University of BelgradeBelgradeSerbia
  4. 4.Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Clinical Pharmacology, Medical FacultyThe University of Novi SadNovi SadSerbia

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