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Accepted Paper:
The drug bag method, a novel approach to capture data on antibiotic use in a low income setting in Harare : The case study of Zimbabwe.
Salome Manyau
(Biomedical Research and Training Institute)
Justin Dixon
(LSHTM)
Clare Chandler
(London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Kenny sithole
Portia Mareke
(Biomedical Research and Training Institute)
Working within the FIEBRE study, a multidisciplinary study exploring febrile illness and antibiotic use in Africa and South-East Asia, l conducted a medicines survey using the drug bag' method to quantitatively and qualitatively study antibiotic use at household level,
Paper long abstract:
Understanding the types of antibiotics used at local level is important for informing stewardship strategies. Current methods used to capture such data relies on verbal elicitations that tend to assume familiarity with medical terminology. This has limitations as the category 'antibiotics' does not translate very well linguistically. More effort is needed to improve accuracy in capturing data on antibiotic use and the 'drug bag' method proved to be a practical, social and fun way of engaging people about antibiotic use at household level.
This paper presents findings and experiences on the use of the 'drug bag' method in 100 households within two high density suburbs of Harare in Zimbabwe. Household members were presented with a 'drug bag' full of antibiotics purchased from their local setting. The 'drug bag' method provided talking points through visualization as participants engaged in 'pile sorting' exercises through which they identified antibiotics they recognized and regularly used. This opened dialogue to discuss their experiences using antibiotics. This method can help improve our understanding of everyday antibiotic use across different settings.