Prescription audit in the inpatients of a tertiary care hospital attached with medical college

Abstract

Background: Prescription audit is one of the methods to assess drug utilization and rationality of prescribing. Irrational prescribing is a worldwide problem. It is due to the faulty prescribing habits, lack of training amongst health care personnel, pressure from the pharmaceutical companies, and a lot of other reasons. Methods: The study was conducted by noting the details of patients admitted during 3 months from April to June 2015 in the Guru Gobind Singh Government Hospital, Jamnagar. Prescriptions were collected from the inpatients of medicine, surgery, obstetrics & gynecology, pediatrics, orthopedic randomly and analyzed according to the WHO core prescribing indicators. Results: Three hundred six prescriptions were analysed in which 1986 drugs were prescribed. Mean number of drugs per prescription was 6.49%. In our study, 63.34% drugs were prescribed by generic names and drugs on NLEM were 73.01%. Dosage forms used were mostly oral (69.54%). Infectious and parasitic diseases were the most common illnesses (16.01%) followed by diseases of respiratory system. The most common drug groups prescribed were GIT, antimicrobials, antihistaminics, multivitamins and minerals. The incidence of poly-pharmacy was also common with maximum number of prescriptions (26.8%) having 5 drugs per prescription. Conclusion: Prescription audit is an important measure to improve the quality of care afforded by the hospitals. Data generated on morbidity pattern coupled with current practices of treatment of these diseases provides an objective basis for preparing an NLEM. By this data we conclude that poly-pharmacy is quite common. Most of drugs were prescribed according to the NLEM 2011.