Adverse reactions to antimicrobials in patients from Las Tunas

Abstract

Background: the consequences generated by the massive and unjustified use of antimicrobials currently represent serious problems in the context of public health on a worldwide scale.

Objective: to describe the adverse reactions produced by antimicrobials, reported to the pharmacovigilance database in the province of Las Tunas, from January to June 2017.

Methods: a pharmacovigilance, observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out at the aforementioned place and during the period herein declared. The study universe consisted of 460 reports of adverse reactions and the sample was made up of the 111 reports corresponding to antimicrobials. Descriptive statistics techniques were applied to analyze the information. The measures of summary statistics were absolute frequency and percentile.

Results: the report of adverse reactions to antimicrobials remained similar in most of the studied months, reports of adverse reactions to antimicrobials in female patients predominated for 61,2 %, in the 19 to 59 age group, 42,3 %. The most affected organ system was the skin in 33,3 %, followed by the general system in 26,2 %. Mild adverse reactions predominated in 58,5 %, probable adverse reactions in 88,2 % and frequent adverse reactions in 58,5 %. The majority of the reactions were reported by physicians, 67,5 %. According to the drug class, cephalosporins and penicillins had higher reports (30,6 and 28,8 %, respectively).

Conclusions: the adverse reactions produced by antimicrobial agents in patients from Las Tunas were described, in the first semester of 2017.