Evaluation of antimalarial drugs usage according to WHO prescribing indicators in a tertiary health facility in Maiduguri, Northeastern Nigeria

Abstract

Background: The high morbidity and mortality associated with malaria especially in sub-Saharan Africa such as Nigeria calls for prompt preventive and curative measures including adherence to standard treatment guideline. Aim: To assess the level of adherence with the five defined WHO prescribing key indicators. Methods: This was a retrospective evaluation of the performance of antimalarial drugs prescribing practice among clinicians from January to December 2014. It was done through a set of drug prescribing indicators developed by WHO and the International Network of Rational Use of Drugs (INRUD). Results: Of the 385 patients prescription randomly generated from the record of 12,477 patients in this descriptive study, a total of 143 (37.1%) had antimalarial prescription(s) with no gender variation. The evaluation of the studied antimalarial drug prescriptions through defined WHO prescribing indicators revealed an average number of drugs per encounter of 3.9, with 37.4% of the prescriptions written in generic names. All the antimalarial drugs were prescribed from the National Drug Formulary, with injectable form constituting 4.7%. Conclusion: This study shows suboptimal compliance with WHO prescribing indicators with respect to average number of antimalarial per encounter and prescription in generic names. The proportion of antimalarials prescription in injectable form falls within the WHO acceptable limit of ≤10%. All antimalarial drug prescriptions in this study were from essential drug list. We, therefore, recommend rational antimalarial drug prescription in conformity with WHO/INRUD core drug prescribing indicators.