A Study of Prescribing Practices in Outpatient Department of an Apex Tertiary Care Institute of India (original) (raw)
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IP innovative publication pvt. ltd, 2019
Introduction: Drug utilization studies are powerful tools to ascertain the role of drug in society. They create a sound socio-medical and health economic basis for healthcare decision making. DUS are conducted to facilitate the rational use of drugs in populations. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to analyze the prescription written by doctors in a Tertiary Care teaching Hospital. Materials and Methods: Present study was a cross sectional, prospective and observational study. The study was conducted in MGM Medical College & Research centre, Aurangabad from July 2018 to March 2019 for duration of 9 months. Data was obtained from 850 prescriptions. Data was analysed as per WHO prescribing indicators. Result: Total 850 prescriptions were analysed, including 490 (57.6%) males and 360 (42.3%) females. The maximum numbers of prescriptions were from the age group of 18-40 (53.6%) years of age. Average number of drugs in the present study was found to be (3.1). Percentage of drugs prescribed by generic name is 16.0%. Percentage of encounters with an antibiotic prescribed was 59.1%. Percentage of encounters with an injection prescribed was 4.9%. Percentage of drugs prescribed from essential drugs list was 68.4 %. Conclusion: There is need of improving the prescribing pattern by keeping the number of medicines as low as possible, prescribing medicines by generic names, using medicines appropriately after selecting and consciously keeping the cost of therapy low. Keywords: Drug utilization studies, WHO prescribing Indicators, Essential drugs.
Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical and Clinical Research
Objective: This study was designed to analyze the drug prescribing practices of doctors and completeness of prescriptions in a government medical college in Northern India. Methods: A total of 2155 prescriptions were evaluated for adequacy of information related to prescribed drugs and completeness of information related to patients and doctors. Results: The weight of the patient was written only in 1.90% prescriptions. The diagnosis was not written on 43.85% prescriptions. A total number of drugs prescribed in all the prescriptions was 6998. The average number of drugs per prescription was found to be 3.25±0.24. Out of these, 64.10% were prescribed by brand names. About 69.14% of drugs were prescribed in the form of tablets. Route of administration was not found to be mentioned for 86.08% drugs. For 53.90% drugs, dose was not mentioned. The name of the prescribing doctor was mentioned in 1.95% prescriptions only. Conclusion: The study revealed that many prescriptions lacked crucial...
Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical and Clinical Research, 2021
Objectives: The objectives of the study were to study the pattern of major drug groups prescribed, assess the Rational Prescription pattern by measuring the WHO Core Prescribing Indicators and to assess the quality of the prescriptions by assessing the legibility of prescription in the outpatient department of a tertiary care hospital. Methods: It was an analytical cross-sectional study done in Outpatient Department for a period of 6 months. Approval from Institutional Research Committee and Institutional Ethics Committee was taken before starting the study. Sample size was taken as 1020. Results: One hundred and twenty prescriptions were analyzed. About 49% prescriptions were of males and 54% of females. Mean age of the patients were 46 years. A total of 3557 medicines were prescribed in 1020 prescriptions. Due to lack of legibility, we were unable to decode 122 medicines out of 3557 medicines prescribed. The dosage forms prescribed were; oral 87.4%, injections 1.4%, inhalational agents 0.4%, and topical agents 10.8%. Average number of medicines per prescription was 3.5. Percentage of medicines prescribed by generic name was 45%. Percentage of antibiotics per prescription was 24.8%. Percentage of injections per prescription was 4.8%. Percentage of medicines prescribed as per NATIONAL essential drugs list (EDL) was 3.2% and as per the WHO EDL was 2.6%. Percentage of fixed dose combinations (FDCs) was 6.5%. Conclusion: It was evident that polypharmacy was present as indicated by the average number of medicines prescribed. Medicines prescribed by generic name and from Essential Medicine List were less in number. Antibiotics and injections prescribed was in conformity with the WHO recommended values, which means that there was no irrational use of antibiotics and unwanted use of injectables. Percentage of FDCs was 6.5%. Most commonly prescribed drug was Ranitidine as per our study. Hence, as per this study, prescribers did not follow prescribing core indicators of the WHO closely, except for two indicators. The quality of prescriptions with respect to legibility and clarity was found to be optimal.
An audit of outpatient prescriptions and drug use pattern at a tertiary care centre of Central India
IP Innovative Publication Pvt. Ltd. , 2018
Objective: A cross sectional observational survey to assess the drug use pattern and habit of writing rational prescription followed by a feedback to the prescribers to ensure the best practice in writing prescriptions. Materials and Methods: Prescriptions were analyzed in the month of January 2016 at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, MP, India using the WHO core prescribing indicators. In addition, quality of prescription writing was also assessed in terms of legibility and completeness of information e.g. whether diagnosis, strength, frequency and duration of drug prescribed was written or not. The collected data was analyzed in Microsoft Excel 2007. Statistical analysis had been done to obtain frequency, average/mean, and percentage. Result: Total number of prescription analyzed were 503, contained a total of 1118 drugs i.e. on an average 2.2 drugs per prescription. Drugs prescribed by generic name and injectable route were 71(6.3%) and 9(1.0%) respectively. A total of 163 antimicrobials were prescribed in 117(23.2%) prescriptions out of which 108 were anti-bacterials. A large proportion (60.1%) drugs prescribed were not included in the NLEM. Incomplete and illegible prescription were 357(70.9%) and 219(43.5%) respectively. Conclusion: This prescription audit revealed that polypharmacy, overuse of injections and unnecessary use of antimicrobials were not a concern in the target prescribers. But there is a scope for improvement in generic prescribing, use of essential medicines, better quality of prescription writing in terms of completeness of information provided and legibility of prescriber details. Introduction Prescribing drugs is the most common therapeutic approach offered to patients by the doctors. It is therefore imperative that this tool be used to make the best possible use of a valuable resource that is a drug. One way of ensuring this is by regular and periodic audits of prescriptions. By throwing light on problems of irrational prescribing, a prescription audit helps in promoting most efficient use of therapeutic agents, reducing prescribing costs by reducing unnecessary use of antibiotics and injections in prescriptions, encouraging generic prescriptions and reducing polypharmacy. This in turn improves patient care and management and reduces noncompliance and wastage of valuable resources. Besides irrational prescribing, many ADEs are caused by medication errors, which in turn are often due to errors in prescription writing, like illegibility, ambiguous abbreviations, lack of date of prescription, dose, route, frequency of administration and duration of treatment. 1,2 At the prescriber level, a prescription audit enables continuing professional and personal development of the practitioner and helps to identify, analyze and plan future development needs. Since a prescriber is clinically and legally responsible for his/her own prescription, every practioner needs to demonstrate that they prescribe effectively and safely, by regularly analyzing and changing their practice where necessary.
Study of drug prescribing pattern in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Jharkhand
Background: In India irrational prescription of drugs is very common. So audit of prescription must be done time to time to improve its quality. The prescriptions were analyzed based on the objective of the study for promoting rational use of drugs in a population. Objective of this study are: 1) Obtaining information about demographic profile of the patients attending OPD. 2) Collect information about no. of drugs and their dosage forms prescribed. 3) Frequency of common category of drugs prescribed. 4) Percentage of drugs prescribed by generic names and fixed dose combinations (FDCs). Method: It was a cross sectional study conducted at outpatient department (OPD) over a period of six months from December 2015 to May 2016. Result: Total 1012 prescriptions were collected and analyzed. 28.56% patients were 20 to 29 years age group. 31.73% were females. About half (49.21%) of prescriptions were from medicine department. Most prescribed group of drugs were antibiotics (27.01%) followed by drugs acting on gastro intestinal tract (GIT) drugs 18.96% and analgesics 18.48%. Nutritional supplements were 10.90%. Maximum 38.08% of prescriptions showed 3 drugs, 22.22% showed 4 drugs, while 4.76% showed only 1 drug. The most prescribed dosage form was tablet 66.5% whereas only 0.97% was injection. Out of total prescribed drugs only 29.4% were prescribed by their generic names whereas 10.05% were FDCs. Conclusion: Prescription writing pattern is poor in terms of no. of drugs per prescription, overuse of antibiotics and fixed dose combination. So it needs improvement to decrease burden on the patients and wastage of resources.
International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology, 2018
Background: Prescription audit is one of the methods to assess the drug utilization pattern and rational use of drugs. In our country the value of drugs prescribed is in crores but a significant proportion of drugs is prescribed irrationally. This is probably due to defect in prescription pattern, lack of knowledge in health care personnel, pressure from drug manufacturing companies and many more. To promote rational use of drugs, standard policies must be set and this can be achieved only after auditing current prescription practices.Methods: A prospective study was carried out in Medical college hospital, Raigarh in the month of January 2018. Around 1000 prescriptions were collected randomly from pharmacy and the prescriptions were analysed on various parameters like patient’s demography, parts of a prescription, information related to doctor and drugs.Results: In this study, we found that percentage of generic drugs were 58.02% and 70.43% drugs were from essential drug list. Only...
International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology
Background: Prescriptions are an important link between physicians and patients. Any medication therapy can become ineffective if not communicated properly to the pharmacist and patient. Therefore, it’s important to maintain the quality of prescription-writing. Thus, we conducted a prescription audit in a tertiary-care hospital.Methods: 413 prescriptions having 1683 drugs were selected by convenience sampling. Adherence to 4 quality parameters, namely mention of date, allergy status, date of next visit, and whether or not the prescription was signed legibly, were observed for each prescription. 5 parameters viz. whether or not the drug was written in capital letters, whether the generic name of the drug was mentioned, and prescription of drug schedule, dose, and duration were evaluated for each drug separately. Frequency tables and appropriate bar plots were created.Results: Dates were mentioned in all prescriptions. There were 4.07±0.44 (mean±SD) drugs per prescription. Using capit...