Abstract
The study was a retrospective prescription analysis of evaluation of prescription patterns on patients admitted with malaria. The study was conducted for a one year period from June 2010 to May 2011. The study aimed to compare the prescriptions with the existing treatment guidelines. Evaluation of data was done for various parameters which include patient demographics, presenting signs and symptoms, previous exposure to malaria, co-morbidities, initial laboratory results, parasitological examinations during hospitalization and drug treatment regimens. A total of 117 prescriptions were analyzed. Among the various anti-malarial drugs given alone, Primaquine was the most prescribed anti-malarial drug (20.4%), followed by Chloroquine (7.2%), Artesunate (3.8%), and Arteether (1.3%), irrespective of the type of therapy. Chloroquine with Doxycycline (10%), Artesunate with Doxycycline (8.2%), Artesunate with Sulphadoxine/Pyrimethamine (12%) were considered to be appropriate rational combination regimens. It was found that 78.7% of these cases have been treated in accordance with the WHO norms and 21.3% of cases not in accordance with the norms. Inappropriate combinations which accounts of (20.7%) and an inappropriate choice of anti-malarial of (0.6%) were observed in the study. The study concluded that there is a need of individual treatment protocol for malaria caused by different parasites and regular training programs for the prescribers for the better patient care as the study site is observed as malaria zone.
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