PRESCRIPTION AUDIT IN OUTPATIENT DEPARTMENTS OF A TERTIARY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Hemangini R. Acharya, (M.B.B.S.), Manish J. Barvaliya, M.D.(Pharmacology), Narendra P. Paliwal, (M.B.B.S.) and C.B. Tripathi*, M.D.(Pharmacology)

ABSTRACT

Title: Prescription audit in outpatient departments of a tertiary care teaching hospital: A cross-sectional study. Background: Standards of medical treatment can be assessed by prescription audit, because it is based on documented evidences to support diagnosis, treatment and utilization of hospital resources. Effective prescription audit is important for health professionals and for society so present study was planning to evaluate prescribing patterns of various outpatient departments of a tertiary care teaching hospital. Method: A prospective observational study was carried out from November 2014 to October 2015 in out-patient departments of a tertiary care teaching hospital. Prescriptions were collected randomly from central pharmacy store and analyzed for average number of drug, proportion of drugs prescribed by generic name, fixed dug combination, drugs from essential drug list, completeness of prescription and drug-drug interaction. Result: Total 1035 prescriptions were analyzed. Most of the prescriptions were from medicine 18.55%, psychiatry 10.72% and orthopedic 8.50% departments. 11.11% prescriptions were for cardiovascular diseases followed by 6.57% for dermatology and 6.18% for diabetes mellitus. Diagnosis, dose, dosage form, route of administration, duration of therapy were missing in majority of prescriptions. Drug name with abbreviation was found in 42.78% prescriptions and 45.41% prescriptions were illegible. Total 4604 drugs were prescribed with average 4.47 drugs per prescription. 75.10% drugs were prescribed by generic name; 86.42% drugs were from national essential medicine list 2011; 26.76% prescriptions has one antimicrobial agent and 11.72% fixed dose combinations were prescribed. Multivitamin 29.75% was the most commonly prescribed drug followed by famotidine 26.95% and chlorpheniramine 22.02%. Out of 1035 prescriptions, 228 drug-drug interactions were found in 189 (18.3%) prescriptions. Conclusion: This study found majority prescriptions with incomplete information and poly pharmacy in current prescribing practice.

Keywords: Prescription audit, Polypharmacy, Rational use of drug.