antibiotics Review Antibiotic Dispensation without a Prescription Worldwide: A Systematic Review Ana Daniela Batista 1, Daniela A. Rodrigues 2 , Adolfo Figueiras 3,4,5 , Maruxa Zapata-Cachafeiro 3,4 ,Fátima Roque 2,6 and Maria Teresa Herdeiro 7,* 1 Department of Medical Sciences, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal;
[email protected] 2 Research Unit for Inland Development, Polytechnic Institute of Guarda (UDI/IPG), 6300-559 Guarda, Portugal;
[email protected] (D.A.R.);
[email protected] (F.R.) 3 Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15702 Santiago de Compostela, Spain; adolfo.fi
[email protected] (A.F.);
[email protected] (M.Z.-C.) 4 Consortium for Biomedical Research in Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBER Epidemiology and Public Health-CIBERESP), 28001 Madrid, Spain 5 Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS), 15702 Santiago de Compostela, Spain 6 Health Sciences Research Centre, University of Beira Interior (CICS-UBI), 6200-506 Covilhã, Portugal 7 Institute of Biomedicine (iBiMED), Department of Medical Sciences, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 7 October 2020; Accepted: 6 November 2020; Published: 7 November 2020 Abstract: Antibiotic resistance still remains a major global public health problem and the dispensing of antibiotics without a prescription at community pharmacies is an important driver of this. MEDLINE, Pubmed and EMBASE databases were used to search and identify studies reporting the dispensing of non-prescribed antibiotics in community pharmacies or drugstores that sell drugs for human use, by applying pharmacy interviews/questionnaires methods and/or simulated patient methods.