A Study to assess Prescription pattern in outpatient department of tertiary care hospital

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Background:

Antibiotic resistance and irrational prescribing is a global concern, is particularly pressing in developing nations, including India, where the burden of infectious disease is high and healthcare spending is low. The Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership (GARP) was established to develop actionable policy recommendations specifically relevant to low- and middle-income countries where suboptimal access to antibiotics - not a major concern in high-income countries - is possibly as severe a problem as is the spread of resistant organisms.

This audit report summarizes the situation as regarding antibiotic use in this hospital.

Rational  prescription practices is a global challenges thus to understand current prescription practices at our HCO an  prescription audit was conducted.

Methods:

The study was carried out prospectively over a period of one month (May 2017) in the outpatient department of our tertiary care pediatric hospital.

Results:

A total of 1240 prescriptions were analyzed. Total no. of drugs in 1240 prescriptions is 2103. average drugs/prescription is 1.7. Antibiotics drugs were prescribed by generic names in 42.77% of cases, drugs dosage forms used were mostly oral. Injectables were only prescribed for immunization as per age groups of children & dog bite cases. Basic information of patients were written in 100% prescriptions. Complete provisional diagnosis were written in 33.55% prescriptions. Most of prescriptions were legible and only 50% prescriptions were complete with antibiotic in terms of dose, route, strength, frequency and dosage forms. Disease patterns seen were variable.

Conclusions:

There is great scope for improvement in prescribing patterns in OPD about writing generic names of drugs and writing complete prescriptions.