Clinical audit to measure compliance with coprescription of laxative with Opioids for patients undergoing palliative care treatment: Results of process analysis

Abstract

All those patients who were on palliative care treatment, and were receiving opioids through outdoor clinics were included in the study. A retrospective data collection from Hospital Information System (HIS) was done over the periods of five months from January to May 2021. A total of N (298) patients were made part of the audit analysis. ResultsThe results of this study showed that N=270 patients received laxative along with opioids and the compliance rate was 90.6%. In the other 28(9.4%) cases, laxative was not prescribed and the reasons for not prescribing was documented in the HIS. Some common reasons for not prescribing the medicines were continent bowel, loose stools and on patients request. The non-compliance ratio was only 3.3% where neither laxative was prescribe nor the reason for not prescribing was mentioned by the physicians. The details of the audit along with frequency of compliance is given in the Table 1.164