Drugs Prescribing Trends in Three Polyclinics in Benghazi-Libya 2020

Abstract

Background: There is an efforts made to improve drug prescribing practices in developing countries. The aim of present work was to comparing prescribing indicators, patient care, and missing information on prescriptions and identifying and assessing drug use patterns in three polyclinics in Benghazi city, Libya. Methods: In this descriptive cross section study a random sample of 1522 prescriptions were selected from three polyclinics include Ras-Ebida, Khalid Ibn-Elwalid and Al-Kish, over 4 months (July-October 2020). The data was collected through predesigned questionnaire. The prescriptions were analyzed for the following indicators: prescribing indicators, patient-care indicators and drug-use indicators. Results: A total of 1522 prescriptions (average = 507.3/clinic) were collected from the three polyclinics including 2329 prescribed (average = 1.4/prescription) items. Percentage of drugs prescribed with generic name was 0.0%, the percentage of prescriptions with antibiotics was 46.3%. The average of prescriptions of injections was 0.84. The average consultation time is 3.4 min and the average dispensing time was found to be 24 seconds. Major classes of drugs prescribed included analgesics, antibiotics, drugs used in medicine & derma clinics, ophthalmic drugs, minerals & vitamins, anti-inflammatory drugs, antihistaminic and antifungal drugs. The most prescribed analgesic was paracetamol (94.4%) and antibiotic was Augmentin (50.3%). In regarding prescribed drug in medicine clinics was found lisinopril (32.0%) and ophthalmic drug was cusicrom (36.8%). In addition, the majorities of prescribed vitamin were vitamin C (81.0%), for GIT drug was omeprazole (59.3%), and for dermatology was Fucidin (56.3%). While most prescribed anti-inflammatory was aspirin (52.4%), antihistaminic was loratidine (97.0%), for antifungal drug was flagyl (58.0%). Conclusion: Despite the efforts being made to improve prescribing habits and to rationalize the use of drugs, the obtained results confirm the deficiencies as reported earlier and suggest that methods of intervention should be initiated to improve prescribing trends in these polyclinics.