General Obstetrics and Gynecology ObstetricsPrescription, over-the-counter, and herbal medicine use in a rural, obstetric population☆
Section snippets
Methods
Interview and study protocols were approved by the West Virginia University Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Research Subjects; all subjects gave written, informed consent before participating. Subjects were recruited from four rural outreach clinics and the Physician's Office Center (also serving a predominantly rural population) of West Virginia University. No portion of the catchment area is considered urban, including the university-based clinic. The rural outreach
Results
Because of the longitudinal nature of the investigation, 2086 patient encounters were recorded. Demographic data are reported in Table I.It is noteworthy that the ethnic representation of participants in the study is congruent with that of the state of West Virginia as a whole (according to 2000 US Census information). The mean gestational age at enrollment was 17.5 weeks. As noted in Table I, 33.6% of the participants received only one interview. This figure includes those obstetric patients
Comment
Pregnant women frequently take medications that are prescribed by physicians other than the obstetrics care provider. In a study of antibiotic usage by pregnant women, Glover and Larsen6 reported that emergency and family medicine physicians prescribed approximately 40% of the antibiotics that are consumed by obstetric patients. Women who take long-term medications (such as thyroxin, antihistamines, or psychotropic agents) may not inform the obstetrician about their use. Medicating with
Acknowledgements
We thank Dr William Ledger and Dr Gilles Monif for their helpful comments during the preparation of this manuscript; we thank especially the numerous Doctor of Pharmacy students who conducted the subject interviews.
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Reprint requests: Timothy S. Tracy, PhD, Department of Basic Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506. E-mail: [email protected]