Health care professionals' knowledge and attitudes of drug benefits and risks in africa

Background: Inappropriate drug use is a major global challenge. In Africa, it may be even more widespread for a number of reasons, especially limited resources. Drugs may be prescribed by health care professionals (HCPs) who have received little training on drug benefits, but especially risks. Objectives: Review knowledge and attitudes of HCPs on drug benefits and risks in Africa. Methods: We performed a systematic review in Embase.com selecting original studies that evaluated knowledge and attitudes of HCPs on modern or traditional medicines (drugs) in Africa following PRISMA guidelines. Results: We identified 71 papers studying HCP drug knowledge; most (68%) originated from 3 countries; i.e. Nigeria (29), South Africa (11) and Tanzania (8). Methods used were quantitative surveys in 45 papers; face-to-face interviews in 15, focus group discussions in 4 and mixed designs in 7. Physicians were studied in 24 (34%) papers, while 32 (42%) involved ≥2 types of HCPs. 32 (45%) papers were on communicable diseases (CD), 14 (20%) on non-communicable diseases (NCD) and 25 (35%) had no specific disease focus. A median of 120 (min 12; max 1440) HCPs were enrolled per study. Knowledge questions were answered correctly by >66% of HCPs in 15 (21%) papers, between 33 and 66% in 39 (55%) papers and b