Background: Prescription pattern monitoring studies are tool for assessing the prescribing, dispensing, and distribution of medicines prevailing in a particular area. The main aim of such studies is to facilitate rational use of medicines. Irrational prescribing leads to increased incidence of adverse effects, drug interactions, and emergence of drug resistance.
Aim and Objectives: This study aims to evaluate drug prescription pattern of outpatient department patients as per the drug use indicators developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and also the occurrence of different medication errors.
Materials and Methods: 662 prescriptions were evaluated. The WHO core drug prescribing indicators analyzed were Average number of medicines prescribed per patient encounter, percentage of medicines prescribed by generic name, percentage of encounters with an antibiotic, injections, or fixed-dose combination (FDC), score of generic prescription, and justification for the use of brand names. The categories of prescription errors which were studied were legibility, absence of doctor identity, diagnosis, drug dosage, and duration.
Results: The most common medication error was lack of treatment duration (75.1%) and illegibility of the prescriptions (61.9%). Most of the drugs were prescribed in generics. About 72.5% of the prescriptions had 100% generic score. Although the use of brand names was not justifiable in most cases. The use of injectables, antibiotics, and FDC was 0.9%, 46.5% and 76.8%, respectively.
Conclusion: Such studies should be done regularly to evaluate the lacunae in drug prescribing patterns and improve them.
Key words: Prescription Pattern; Medication Errors; Generic Medicines; Generic Score
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