Advice given to women who are prescribed antibiotics while taking the oral contraceptive pill

摘要

Introduction It is well established that the concurrent use of antibiotics and the oral contraceptive pill (OCP) maynresult in unplanned pregnancy. An audit project was conducted to ascertain the proportion of patients that werenappropriately informed regarding the consequences of using antibiotics while taking the combined OCP.nPatients and Methods Over two 6-month periods all female inpatients between the ages of 16 and 55 years whonwere discharged from the ENT ward on a course of oral antibiotics were asked if they had been made aware of thenpossible interaction between antibiotics and the OCP.nResults The first audit cycle revealed that no patients in the study group were informed of the potential consequences.nThe second audit cycle was performed after a brief educational presentation was added to the inductionnprocess for training grade doctors, resulting in 85% of patients being appropriately informed. All the womennwho actually used the OCP were appropriately informed.nConclusions This study showed that medical staff did not inform their female patients of the possible interactionnbetween antibiotics and the OCP. This shortcoming was dramatically improved by instituting a simple educationalnprocess.