Background: The quality of life can be improved by enhancing the standards of the medical treatment at all levels of the healthcare delivery system. A medical audit oversees the observance of these standards. Prescription Audit offers the most comprehensive overview of performance, detailing parameter as per the check list of prescription audit. Aim: To monitor, evaluate and suggest modifications (if necessary) in the prescribing practices of medical practitioners. Methods: The observational study was conducted over a period of 6 months and data were collected from 1093 prescriptions collected from outpatient department of a tertiary care teaching hospital in India. Results: Total 1093 prescriptions were evaluated for the Audit, out of which 56.4% were Male & 43.6% were Female cases. Majority of the study subjects belonged to the age group of 40-59 years (32.4%). During the study mainly twelve parameter were assessed according to the checklist provided by the Hospital with total 1093 samples of prescription audit, only 2.2 % (280) cases had the non-compliance, 64.5% (8464) cases had compliance and 33.3% (4372) not applicable to this parameters. Conclusion: The results obtained from the study shows the prevailing prescribing habits at our institution. Many of the prescribing trends from this study are a cause of concern and need attention. This study reveals that the auditing of prescription in terms of rationality, it remains poor. The value of such audits in generating and testing hypotheses on inappropriate prescribing will definitely create an intervention to improve prescribing habits and ultimately patient care will be improved.

Background: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are an important cause of morbidity and mortality across the world and contribute to a significant economic burden on healthcare resources and community. In children, monitoring ADRs is essential as adequate clinical trials are lacking in this group. So, this study was undertaken to assess the ADR pattern in a paediatric population in a tertiary care hospital.Methods: A cross sectional, retrospective study was done at ADR monitoring centre (AMC) for a period of 3 years in a tertiary care hospital. All the ADRs reported by the Department of Paediatrics to AMC were collected and analyzed for age group affected, demographic profile, ADR pattern, drug group, systems affected, causality and severity of the ADR.Results: During the study period, a total of 102 ADRs were reported to the AMC from the paediatric department. Out of 102 ADRs reported, males represented 60.8% and females represented 39.2%. Maximum number of ADRs were seen in the age group of 1-5 years (43.3%). Most common ADR reported was maculopapular rash (27.5%) followed by diarrhoea (14.7%). The most common drug class causing ADRs are antibiotics (36.3%) followed by anticonvulsants (18.6%). Vaccines contributed to 14.7% of all reported ADRs. Majority of the ADRs were of probable (70.6%) causality and moderate (52%) in severity.Conclusions: ADRs were reported more among under 5 years of age and antibiotics were the common implicated causative agents. Most of the reactions were of moderate severity. Information acquired through ADR reporting may be useful in identifying and minimizing preventable ADRs and augmenting the knowledge of the prescribers to deal with ADRs more efficiently.