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Abstract

Irrational use of medicines results in poor patient clinical outcomes, adverse drug reactions, economic burden and antimicrobial resistance. The objective of this study was to evaluate drug prescription patterns in private and public health sectors in Wolkite town, South West Ethiopia. The drug prescriptions were evaluated in 11 private and public health facilities, Wolkite town, South west Ethiopia. Total patient records of 600 were collected by systematic random sampling technique from patients attended the facilities from January 1 to December 31, 2011, retrospectively. One thousand two hundred twenty seven drugs were prescribed for 385 patient encounters making the average number of drugs per encounter 3.20 + 1.01 (private=3.33, public= 2.89). Three hundred and one (78.2%) patients in private and public health facilities were prescribed with at least one inappropriate drug. Inappropriate choice of drug 108 (28.0%), over prescription of drugs 89 (23.0%) and inappropriate duration of treatment 28 (7.2%) were the three most prevalent cause of inappropriate prescriptions in the health facilities. Much remains to be done to promote rational prescription of drugs in primary health care facilities.