Paper short abstract:

We developed a survey using the Drug Bag Method to generate knowledge on the use of antibiotics, for what purposes they are used, and where they are procured from. In this presentation, We will reflect upon results, the methodological challenges, and ethical questions in the presentation.

Paper long abstract:

In Burkina Faso, little is known about community practices with antibiotics outside healthcare settings. The purpose of our research is therefore to generate knowledge of which antibiotics are commonly used in households, for what purposes, and where they are procured from. Therefore, we developed a survey using the Drug Bag Method, developed by researchers in LSHTM (Dixon et al. 2019), which involves purchasing locally available antibiotics for respondents to identify and classify antibiotics according to availability, local terminologies, and specific uses. In this presentation, we will discuss the collaborative experience and ethical implications for conducting the Drug Bag method in Burkina Faso.

We conducted the study in 2021 with 423 households in the Nanoro health district of Burkina Faso. Designing the survey was a collaborative process between social scientists and researchers from different disciplines at the Clinical Research Unit Nanoro. The aim was to produce a survey whose results would be useful for anthropologists, clinicians, demographers and data scientists. For example, the survey findings will inform the development of in-depth qualitative interviews and observation matrices, whilst some data can be linked to the Nanoro Health and Demographic Surveillance System. However, the exercise did raise some ethical implications. For example, the most commonly recognized antibiotics were purchased from informal sellers, which have arrived in Burkina Faso via illegal smuggling routes. This raised issues of trust, respondent safety, and data sharing. We will reflect upon results, the methodological challenges, and ethical questions in the presentation.