Quality Use of Medicines among Makkah Residents, Saudi Arabia

Introduction: Quality Use of Medicines (QUoM) is of utmost importance regarding the safety and overall healthcare of the consumers/patients. This study aimed to explore the general usage pattern and attitude of the Makkah community about the safe use of medicines i.e. QUoM.

Methods: Face to face interviews were done to administer questionnaires among patients from two hospitals and four primary care centers dealing with patients from rural and urban areas in the Holly Makkah region.

Results: A total of 554 patients were enrolled while the majority of them were lived in urban areas (n=457,82%). Around 419 (76%) responder were females and 531(96%) were living with their family and had up to college education (n=174,31%). We found that most of the respondents were diabetic (185,33%) and hypertensive (n=172,31%). Most of the patients (207,37%) stated that they preferred to get drug information from healthcare professionals.

Conclusion: This periodic mapping of appropriate medication usage among patients/consumers is indeed an important effort to explore issues on QUoM.