Introduction: Provision of access to drug information by prescribers
and other health care professionals is important in pharmacotherapy. At
the time of this study there was very scanty literature in this area
from Africa. Objective: To assess use of a pilot drug information
centre (DIC) which was set up in a department of Pharmacology and
Therapeutics in a university teaching hospital in Uganda. Methods: This
was a situational analysis with a prospective study design. The pilot
DIC was established and its use over an eleven-month period was
assessed. The received queries were evaluated for source of the query,
reason for the query and type of query. Results: During the 11 months
297 queries were received, 72.3% of which were from public hospitals.
Most werefrom prescribing doctors (54.2%). Majority were on drug-drug
interaction (41.2%), followed by therapy (23.2%). Out of 197 specific
drug requests, 65.5% were on antiretroviral. Conclusion: We found that
healthcare professionals were enthusiastically using the drug
information centre. It is, therefore, necessary and feasible to
establish a DIC in Uganda that will enable these professionals to
readily access drug information