Publications by authors named "Kathryn J Fredricks"
Article Synopsis
- The study highlights the serious threat of antibacterial resistance (ABR) in low-resource areas like East Africa, specifically focusing on multi-drug resistant urinary tract infections (MDR UTIs).
- Researchers examined a variety of factors, including behavioral, environmental, socioeconomic, and demographic influences, that contribute to the risk of developing MDR UTIs among outpatients in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
- Findings suggest that individuals at higher risk tend to have multiple social and environmental disadvantages, indicating that effective interventions should consider these intersecting factors rather than just focusing on antibiotic use alone.
Antibacterial resistance (ABR) is a major public health threat. An important accelerating factor is treatment-seeking behaviour, including inappropriate antibiotic (AB) use. In many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) this includes taking ABs with and without prescription sourced from various providers, including health facilities and community drug sellers.
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- The study investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted care-seeking behaviors and antibiotic use for urinary tract infection-like symptoms in Uganda and Tanzania, two East African countries with different COVID-19 policies.
- Data was collected from outpatient patients with UTI symptoms at three time points: before COVID-19, during early COVID-19, and later in the pandemic, focusing on delays in seeking care and antibiotic use.
- Findings showed that while delays in seeking care decreased during the pandemic, inappropriate antibiotic use, particularly metronidazole and doxycycline, significantly increased, raising concerns about adherence to treatment guidelines.
Dispensing antibiotics without prescription is among the major factors leading to antimicrobial resistance. Dispensing of antibiotics without prescription has negative impact at the individual and societal level leading to poor patient outcomes, and increased risks of resistant bacteria facilitated by inappropriate choice of antibiotics doses/courses. Antimicrobial resistance is a global public health threat which is projected to cause 10 million deaths by 2050 if no significant actions are taken to address this problem This study explored the practices and motives behind dispensing of antibiotics without prescription among community drug outlets in Tanzania.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: A key factor driving the development and maintenance of antibacterial resistance (ABR) is individuals' use of antibiotics (ABs) to treat illness. To better understand motivations and context for antibiotic use we use the concept of a patient treatment-seeking pathway: a treatment journey encompassing where patients go when they are unwell, what motivates their choices, and how they obtain antibiotics. This paper investigates patterns and determinants of patient treatment-seeking pathways, and how they intersect with AB use in East Africa, a region where ABR-attributable deaths are exceptionally high.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Poverty is a proposed driver of antimicrobial resistance, influencing inappropriate antibiotic use in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, at subnational levels, studies investigating multidimensional poverty and antibiotic misuse are sparse, and the results are inconsistent. We aimed to investigate the relationship between multidimensional poverty and antibiotic use in patient populations in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
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