Prescription Patterns of General Practitioners in Peshawar, Pakistan

Abstract

Objectives: To find out prescription patterns of general practitioners in Peshawar. Methods: Cross-sectional survey of drug prescriptions was done at six major hospitals and pharmacies of Peshawar between April and May 2011. A total of 1097 prescriptions that included 3640 drugs, were analyzed to assess completeness, average number of drugs, prescription frequency of various drug classes, and number of brands prescribed. Results: No prescription contained all essential components of a prescription. Legibility was poor in 58.5% prescriptions. Physician’s name and registration number were not mentioned in 89% and 98.2% prescriptions respectively. Over 78% prescriptions did not have diagnosis or indication mentioned. Dosage, duration of use, signature of physician and directions for taking drugs were not written in 63.8%, 55.4%, 18.5% and 10.9% of prescriptions respectively. On average each prescription included 3.32 drugs. Most frequently prescribed drug classes included analgesics (61.7%), anti-infective agents (57.2%), multi-vitamins (37.8%) and gastrointestinal drugs (34.4%). We found 206, 130, 105 and 101 different brands of anti-infective agents, gastrointestinal drugs, analgesics and multivitamins being prescribed. Conclusion: We observed a high number of average drugs per prescription mostly using brand names, and over-prescription of analgesics, antimicrobials, multivitamins and anti-ulcer drugs. Quality of written prescriptions was poor in terms of completeness.

Introducing a structured prescription form improves the quality of handwritten prescriptions in limited resource setting of developing countries

“…This is a follow-up to our previous study [35] that highlighted the low level of completeness and legibility of drug prescriptions in the same geographical area. The current study was designed to assess the effect of introducing an intervention (a pre-printed structured prescription form) on the level of completeness and legibility of prescriptions.…”

“…The results indicated that in 89% of prescriptions, doctor's name was not written . In 79%, diagnoses were not mentioned, and in 55% and 11%, duration and directions for taking drugs were not mentioned, respectively . The results of the study also indicated that one of the locations assessed in the study had better quality of prescriptions, and this was the only location using structured prescription forms.…”

A survey of prescription pattern of antibiotic drugs on patients suffering from ENT infection within Dhaka metropolis

“…54 In our present study most of the drugs (92%) were prescribed by brand name which coincides with the report from the survey conducted by previous study. 54,55 A total number of 473antibiotic drugs were found in 300 prescriptions among which antibiotics that lie under β-Lactam class were most commonly prescribed. A similar incident was reported in the previous study.…”

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“…In above scenario nurse was de-motivated because nurse manager was having bias attitude toward their staff as well as and not interested to provide them the opportunities for promotion. A study conducted at Khyber Teaching Hospital, Raza [3] shows that nurses were dissatisfy due to the lack of promotion opportunities and low salary. Nurses were unsatisfied because of slow procession and unfair means used to avail the Promotion opportunities although they are eligible and meeting the criteria.…”