Assessment of Medication Prescribing Indicators Using the World Health Organization Standard Indices in a Tertiary Hospital in Ilorin, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Drug use is the most common option in treating disease conditions in clinical practice. Irrational prescription and use of medicine have become a major problem in Africa. The patterns of medication prescription in this environment have been under-studied. Evaluating these patterns is essential to provide information that may guide actions towards improving the prescription standards and mitigate the problems associated with irrational prescription and use of medicine. The study aimed to assess medication prescribing patterns by all cadres of doctors in the General Outpatient Department of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) using the World Health Organization (WHO) prescribing indicators. Methods: It was a six-month retrospective study of medication prescription by all cadres of the doctors attending to outpatients in the General Outpatient Department of UITH between 1st July, 2022 – 31st December, 2022. A validated data capture form was used for the study following the WHO prescribing indicator guidelines. The results were displayed using the arithmetic means, frequencies, and percentages. Results were interpreted by the recommended ideal values by the WHO. Results: 1,650 prescriptions were reviewed, 914 were included in the study. This study found that all the analyzed prescription indices fell short of the WHO-recommended threshold. An average of 2.25 medications were prescribed per patient. The percentages of encounters with injections, antibiotics, and other medications by generic name were 87.2%, 66.9%, and 73.2%, respectively. 53.8% of the medications prescribed came from the essential medicine list. Conclusion: All medication prescribing indicators assessed were found to be below the ideal value recommended by WHO. Therefore, we advocated for the training of prescribers and the formulation of policies that will promote the prescription of medications in line with WHO guidelines.