Prescription Pattern in the Eye Clinic of a Tertiary Health Facility in South-East Nigeria.

Abstract

Introduction: Eye care is imperative and requires that ophthalmic prescriptions be generated properly. Evaluation of prescription pattern is an aspect of investigation of drug utilization which is an essential part of pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacovigilance. Objectives: To determine the prescription pattern in the eye clinic of a health facility using the WHO core prescribing indicators and document the disease pattern according to the prescriptions. Methods: The study was conducted at the Eye Clinic of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), Nigeria. Data were collected retrospectively from prescriptions (from January to December 2018) in the Pharmacy using the WHO core indicator form. Microsoft Excel® was used to organize and analyse collected data using descriptive analysis. Ethical approval was obtained from the health research ethics committee of UCTH, Calabar. Result: A total of 1098 prescriptions were accessed over the 12-month study period, 48% (531) of which were for females and 83% (915) for adults. Average number of drugs per prescription was 1.8. The percentage of drugs by generic name was 38.8%, drugs prescribed from essential drug list was 28.7% and antibiotics prescribed was 31.3%. Glaucoma (23%), conjunctivitis (19%) and refractive error (17%) were the most prevalent eye diseases found. Conclusion: Prescription pattern in this study site conformed to only one of the five WHO drug use indicators. High antibiotics prescriptions were observed, and eye diseases associated with bacterial infections were most prevalent in this study. Drugs should be prescribed with generic names and the essential drugs lists should be expanded to accommodate more drugs for glaucoma.