Prescription Audit in an Outpatient Pharmacy of a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital-A Prospective Study

Abstract

Background: Prescription audit aids in evaluating the quality of medical treatment offered to the patients. It helps to discern any effective changes that would support health care professionals to proffer superior quality of care to the patients. Aim of the study is to carry out prescription audit in the outpatient pharmacy department of a tertiary care teaching hospital. Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted on 500 prescriptions for a span of four months in the outpatient pharmacy department of a tertiary care teaching hospital in South Karnataka, India. All the prescriptions were analyzed based on WHO prescribing indicators and were evaluated for errors in prescription writing. Data were entered and analyzed using into SPSS. Graphic representation has been used for visual interpretation of the analyzed data. Results: Five hundred scripts comprising of 1,661 drugs were analyzed. The average number of drugs per prescription was three. The study encompassed 52% males and 48% females. Most patients were from the age group of 41-60 years. Only 3.6% (18) of medications were prescribed by generic names. Patients received 9% (145) medications contained in Essential Drug List and prescriptions containing antibiotics were 19% (97). Majority of the prescriptions were from Orthopaedics (18.6%) tailed by General Medicine (15.8%). Consecutively Analgesics (12.7%) were the most commonly prescribed drug class, among which Diclofenac and Paracetamol+Tramadol were usually prescribed, this was tailed by gastrointestinal medicines (11.7%). Conclusion: Prescription audit can be helpful to plan appropriate intervention to ensure the rational drug therapy and to evaluate the existing drug use pattern. It also reflects the perspectives of current prescribing pattern in hospitals.

Prescription Audit Using the World Health Organization Prescribing Indicators for Indoor Patients Treated Under Cmaay/Pmjay Insurance Schemes in a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

“…The generic names were used in 67.3% of the total drugs prescribed by all departments is less than the WHO core prescribing indicator which suggests that 100% of the drugs prescribed should be with generic names. In some of the other studies conducted by Rai et al, Sunny et al, and Chakraborthy et al, the percentage of generic names were 11.3%, 3.6%, and 47%, respectively, which is less than our study results [20][21][22].…”

The perception and disposal practices of unused and expired medicines by households in an urban municipality, southwest Nigeria: A comparative cross-sectional study

“…Besides, however, self-medication, through the purchase of medicines over the counter was also widely reported, especially among people in HDS. This situation was deepened since anyone can acquire medicines, without doctor's prescription in the study area, due to laxity in control and enforcement of extant national laws, perhaps to the about 90-220 minutes of wait-time associated with hospital visits by the sick for consultations, examinations and medicines acquisitions [40][41][42][43][44], apart from the non-availability of several essential medicines [45], expected to be provided by the National health insurance scheme in accredited healthcare facilities in Nigeria [46]. These might also be the reason for the increasing prevalence of NAFDAC licenced and unapproved herbal formulations.…”

Antibiotic Prescription Audits Among Pediatric Outpatients With Acute Ailments in a Secondary Care Hospital During the COVID-19 Omicron Wave in Northern India

“…No injectable medications were prescribed in our study setting, which is much lower than previous studies [ 24 , 27 ] as our study focused on only children aged <10 years within outpatient settings, whereas other studies focused on adults.…”

“…A medical audit is the examination of the medical and healthcare systems toward eliciting improvement in the standard of healthcare services provided to patients. The prescribing practices are crucial as only rational prescriptions can ensure therapeutic efficacy and safety [ 24 ].…”