Drug prescription pattern of outpatients in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Purpose:Drug use prescribing indicators advocated by the World Health Organization (WHO) are important tools for assessing the degree of polypharmacy, use of generic medicines, and to evaluate if there is inappropriate use of antibiotics or parenteral medications besides estimating the adherence to the essential drugs list. This study aimed to assess the WHO prescribing indicators in prescriptions given at the medical outpatient department (OPD) in a private medical college hospital in South India.Materials and Methods:The study was done prospectively from patients when they presented for consultation at the medical OPD at our tertiary care center. Prescriptions were randomly chosen to be analyzed for the WHO prescribing indicators from September 2016 to April 2017.Results:A total of 700 prescriptions were analyzed and the average number of drugs per prescription was 2.955 ± 1.32. 32.57% of prescriptions had fixed drug combinations and a similar value of 36% was obtained for prescriptions containing more than one drug for the same indication. Amongst the prescribing indicators, generic prescribing was appallingly low (6.42%). In contrast, antibiotic prescribing and prescription of injections showed an appreciably rational trend with 15.42% and 8.14%, respectively. Furthermore, the prescription of the drugs enlisted in the essential drugs list was determined to be 90.67%.Discussion:The need for increase in generic prescribing and augmenting the adherence of prescriptions to the essential drugs list has been identified. This can be accomplished by multimodal approach that includes regulatory changes, conducting educational programs directed at attitudinal change among current doctors and imparting modifications in medical curriculum so as to inculcate the culture of abiding by the best prescription practices among budding doctors.Conclusion:This study has delineated the requisite for pertinent changes in current prescribing trends in a tertiary care teaching private colleges.

Pattern of Ciprofloxacin Prescribing at Outpatient Setting in Al-Kharj

“…Ahmed et al [13] reported that quinolones group was prescribed in 9.1% of the outpatient antibiotics prescriptions. In contrast to our study, Shanmugapriya et al [14] stated that the highest prescribed antibiotic was levofloxacin followed by co-trimoxazole. Shapiro et al [15] reported that the majority of antibiotics prescribed for adults in ambulatory care settings are broad-spectrum agents, most commonly fluoroquinolones and macrolides.…”

Analysis of prescriptions for completeness in a tertiary care teaching hospital

“…11,12 Being trivial errors they are unlikely to hamper dispensing of the correct drug, however mentioning them, shall help the pharmacist to correlate and interpret the correct drug, formulation and dose, especially among the handwritten prescriptions. 13 Use of brand names in the current study was very high similar to the study by Shanmugapriya et al 14 Extensive use of brand names by the prescribing physician, can contribute to prescription errors. In our tertiary care setting where a single pharmacy dispenses drug of various specialties, errors can be common.…”

Prescription pattern at outpatient department in a tertiary care hospital of Gujarat: a cross-sectional study

“…9 The probable description for the low percentage of generic prescribing could be owing to frequent and influential encouragement of the propriety products by pharmaceutical companies and in certain case, clinicians are bound to concede to the resolve of wealthy patients demanding pacesetter drugs for treatment. 3 In the present study 11.93% of encounters had an injection prescribed which is somewhat higher than Bhatnagar et al (10%) but lower than the study carry out (14%) and another study conducted by Simpson et al reported 38% and Mittal et al 80% use of injectables. [10][11][12] Injectable drugs are connected with trouble of administration and medication errors.…”

“…However, irrational drug use, considered as a universal risk is mainly common in the developing countries due to irrational prescribing, stipulation, and management of medications. 2,3 Medical prescription is a significant document of medico legal value too, that can be kept as proof in medico legal cases in court of law and thus should be cautiously and critically considered. More than 50% of all medicines global are prescribed, dispensed, or sold improperly and 50% of patients not succeed to take them perfectly.…”