The Investigation of Prescribing Performance of Obstetricians in Pregnancy

Abstract

Drug use in pregnancy is a situation that can affect the child’s health and development in all stages of life. There is no doubt that the investigation of maternal drug use in pregnancy may supply valuable information about the teratogenicity of drugs and the child health. In this study, the prescribing habit of the obstetricians in pregnancy was investigated. The prescriptions were collected from 6 different community pharmacies in which close to hospitals in Northern Cyprus, between April-October 2016. In total 122 prescriptions which including 180 drugs were collected for analyzing. In prescriptions, the drug numbers, patient information, drugs and prescription format were analyzed. The mean drug number per prescription was 1.5±0.7. Most of the prescriptions (86.1%) were written by doctors working in private hospitals. Only 3 prescription included diagnosis and in none of the prescription patient and gestational age were mentioned. It was observed that other than the folic acid and vitamin preparations the most frequently prescribed drugs were antifungals (10%), antibacterials (8.9%) and progesterone (5.6%). According to the FDA drug risk classification, 38.3%, 18.9% and 15.6% of the drugs were in “A”, “B” and “C” categories, respectively. Rest of the 8.3% and 3.9% of the drugs were in “D” and “X” categories. These results may point out some important prescribing habits of the doctors. It was observed that although folic acid and vitamins were the most frequently written drugs, the drugs that were in “D” and “X” categories were also chosen during pregnancy. Further investigations required to analyze the relation of the high risk category drug use during pregnancy and birth defects.