Population Council Research that makes a difference

XXVI IUSSP International Population Conference
27 September–2 October 2009

Abstract

How often and under which circumstances do Mexican pharmacy vendors recommend misoprostol?
Diana K. Lara, Sandra Garcia, and Francisco Paz

We want to understand how often and when misoprostol is recommended as an abortifacient at pharmacies in eight Mexican cities. We randomly selected 192 pharmacies, sending three types of mystery clients to each of them. The clients asked for a drug to interrupt a pregnancy. If the vendor did not mention Cytotec spontaneously, the client asked directly about Cytotec. In 75 percent of the client–vendor interactions Cytotec was recommended, in 67 percent of those interactions in which the client asked directly about Cytotec the vendor said he/she knew about the drug. Only 16 percent of the vendors recommended an effective dose. Pharmacies in Mexico City have less probability of asking for a prescription to sell Cytotec (OR 0.35, 95% CI 0.16–0.80) than other cities. Independent pharmacies have more probability of selling Cytotec by individual-pill than chain pharmacies (OR 3.17, 95% CI 1.46–6.90). There is extensive recommendation of misoprostol but infrequent recommendation of effective doses to induce an abortion.

IUSSP 2009 conference Web site

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