Abstract
BackgroundAbout one-third of the world’s population lack access to essential medicines and this is further compounded by inappropriate prescription, dispensing, sale and use of the available medicines. The objective of the study was to assess the patterns of medicine use among health facilities in eastern Ethiopia using World Health Organization’s Prescribing, Patient Care and Health facility indicators.MethodsA cross sectional study was carried out in eight randomly selected health centers and data were collected retrospectively as well as prospectively. Prescribing indicators were assessed retrospectively using 636 prescriptions selected by systematic random sampling technique among prescriptions filled between September 2013 and September 2014. Patient care indicators were assessed prospectively by interviewing 708 patients from the health facilities. Health facilities were assessed through observation. Data were entered and analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences version 20. P-value less than 0.05 at 95 % confidence interval considered for significance of relationships for associations in statistical tests.ResultsThe average number of medicines per prescription was 2.2 with standard deviation of 0.8. The proportion of medicines prescribed by generic name was 97 and 92 % of the prescribed medicines were included in List of Essential Medicines for Ethiopia, Prescriptions containing antibiotics and injections constituted (82.5 and 11.2 %) respectively. Of the total of 1426 medicines prescribed, 49.6 % were antibiotics, with amoxicillin (33.3 %) and co-trimoxazole (16.0 %) being the most commonly prescribed agents. The average consultation and dispensing times were 5.6 and 2.7 min, respectively. Among the medicines dispensed, 64.0 % were adequately labeled and the proportion of patients with adequate knowledge about medicines was 69 %.ConclusionThe prescribing and dispensing practices in the health facilities are fairly good and are not that far from the standard WHO requirements. However, there is a need to do more on some issues, including prescribing practice of antibiotics, average number of medicines per prescription, and patients’ dosage form knowledge.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1414-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
About one-third of the world’s population lack access to essential medicines and this is further compounded by inappropriate prescription, dispensing, sale and use of the available medicines
In the assessment of World Health Organization (WHO) prescribing indicators all the 636 prescription encounters sampled all and all the 708 patient interviews were included in the final analysis while making a 100 % completion and response rates
Out of the total 1426 medicines prescribed, almost all (1385, 97 %) were prescribed by generic name while a very high proportion (1311, 92 %) of medicines were from the essential medicines list (EML) of Ethiopia
Summary
About one-third of the world’s population lack access to essential medicines and this is further compounded by inappropriate prescription, dispensing, sale and use of the available medicines. Rational use of medicines is observed when patients receive medications appropriate to their clinical needs, in doses that meet their own individual requirements, for an adequate period of time, and at the lowest price [1]. Despite this fact, one-third of the world population lacks access to essential medicine, more than 50 % of all medicines are used d inappropriately and 50 % of the patients have problem of compliance [2]. There have been tremendous improvements in the pharmaceutical sector in the recent past, there is still a need to emphasize on the setting up of appropriate systems to monitor the rational use of medicine regularly [6]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
