Evaluation of prescription indicators established by the WHO in Getúlio Vargas - RS

Abstract

To evaluate the conditions of the services offered to the community regarding medications, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed the Medication Use Indicators, among them Prescription indicators. The objective of this study was to evaluate drug prescriptions in a Basic Health Care Center in Getúlio Vargas - RS, according to the Prescription Indicators recommended by the WHO. The data collection was performed with the use of a form and the prescriptions for June / July and November / December 2008 were evaluated. The average number of drugs prescribed was 2.03, and 72.8% of the drugs were prescribed by generic name, 80.3% were on the list of essential drugs, 21.7% were antibiotics and 2.4% were injectable drugs. The results were in accordance with WHO recommendations and were similar to those reported by other studies.

A prospective study of drug utilization pattern in cardiac intensive care unit at a tertiary care teaching hospital

“…Increasing requirement of drugs when more than one disease is found in a patient justifies the use of FDCs. 16,17 The overall percentage of generic drugs prescribed is 52.9%, which was found to be higher than the previous studies conducted by Al The average number of drugs in each prescription was 7.8±2.2, percentage of drugs prescribed by generic name was 52.9%, percentage of injectables was 100%, and percentage of drugs prescribed from essential drug list was 75.1%, none of them were in compliance with WHO recommendations of ≤2, 100%, 10%, and 70%, 19,20 respectively for each variable except for drugs prescribed by generic name.…”

Antibiotic utilization pattern in the department of surgery in a tertiary care centre in eastern India

“…Percentage of encounters with an antibiotic prescribed is an indicator that evaluates the use of antibiotics in excess which contributes to bacterial dissemination and resistance. 13 This was 66% in this study, which is very high compared to the standard (20.0%-26.8%) derived to be ideal. 16 Percentage of prescribed injectable drugs is an indicator that aims to evaluate the injectables in excess because their administration may have serious consequences when prescribed or applied wrongly, such as difficulty for case reversion in the event of anaphylactic reactions, adverse reactions, fiber necrosis, etc.…”

“…This helps in controlling drug costs in the health service. 13 In this study 21% antibiotics were prescribed by generic name. This may be due to lack of confidence of doctors on generic drugs.…”

“…The educational quality informational level of the prescriber may also be observed. 13 The WHO proposes that optimally, this should be <2. 14,15 In this study and in studies from other developing countries we observed that the average number of drugs per prescription was more than that proposed by WHO.…”

Evaluation of prescribing patterns of medical practitioners in the state of Goa, India

“…In contrast to the present study, medicines prescribed from the National Essential List of Medicine were higher in the states of Karnataka (90.18%), Maharashtra (81.6%), Madhya Pradesh (73.54%) in India, and countries like Ethiopia (96.6%), Sudan (72.83%), Nigeria (94%), Sri Lanka, Brazil (80%), Pakistan (98.8%). 7,9,11,[21][22][23][24][25][26] Adopting the NELM in clinical practice promotes rational, safe and cost effective utilization of medicines.…”