Assessment of prescription pattern at the public health facilities of Lucknow district

Abstract

Objectives:To study the prescription pattern at the different levels of public health facilities of Lucknow district and to assess the average cost of drugs prescribed.Methods:Multi-stage stratified random sampling was done to select 1625 prescriptions of the patients attending the different level of public health facilities in Lucknow district, from August 2005 to September 2006, which was used for the development of study tools, collection of data and analysis.Results:The important components of prescription viz. examination findings, weight of the child, follow up visit and the signatures of the prescribers were absent in the prescriptions at the primary level. Polypharmacy was common (3.1 ± 1.6 drugs per prescription). The prescription of drugs by generic name was low (27.1%). The prescriptions at the secondary level health facilities were incomplete with respect to mentioning the suffix/prefix of the drug, full name, dose, frequency and strength of the drugs, and directions specifying the route and duration of the treatment. The average cost of drugs/prescription/day in US$ (Mean, SD) was found to be the highest at the tertiary level (0.34, 0.43), which decreased significantly at the primary level health facilities.Conclusion:The pattern of prescription in terms of completeness and rationality was poor. There is an urgent need to improve the standards of drug prescription.

Analysis of Out Door Patients’ Prescriptions According to World Health Organization (WHO) Prescribing Indicators Among Private Hospitals in Western India

“…Kumari et al, [26] reported that 27.1% drugs prescribed by generic name respectively which was higher as compared to our study.…”

Study on drug utilization pattern of antihypertensive medications on out-patients and inpatients in a tertiary care teaching hospital: A cross sectional Study

“…On similar study found in Central India by Vandana and Sanjaykumar (2012), average number of drugs was 7.5 per subjects, Western Nepal study reported by Shankar et al (2010), mean number of drugs was 7.73 ± 4.24, and overseas study conducted in Tanzania (Rimoy et al, 2008); while in the present study, anti-hypertensive drugs contained 1.0 to 3.0 drugs per prescription which is compatible with the Tanzania studies by Rimoy et al (2008) (2 to 3 drugs). In percentage of prescribed generic name (measure the trends of prescribing by generic name), in the present study, a result of (28.2%) out of 1407 prescriptions was very much lower than that reported by (Bhavesh et al (2012) (100.0%), similar study found in Lucknow district studied by Kumari et al (2008) (Hogerzeil et al, 1993).…”

Drug Prescribing and Dispensing Practices in Tertiary Care Hospital of Eastern Ethiopia: Evaluation with World Health Organization Core Prescribing and Patient Care Indicators

“…In this study, almost all prescriptions don't contain diagnosis. The prescribers often omit writing the diagnosis on the prescription paper [16]. In the absence of diagnosis, the dispensers simply supply drugs without any know how about the condition to which the drug is going to be issued.…”