A STUDY ON EMERGENCY MEDICINES PRESCRIBED FOR FEMALE PATIENTS IN THE CASUALTY WARD OF A GOVERNMENT TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Tini Mathai, Dr. Suresha B. S.*, Aswathy Jose, Muhammed Hameem, Jithu Johnson, Dr. Divya Shree N.

ABSTRACT

Background: The emergency medicine department has the primary duty in selection and initiation of drug therapy to the patient. Physicians faces a lot of challenges in prescribing drugs and have to take immediate and relevant decisions as the patients are critically ill. Objective: To describe the drugs prescribed to the female patients admitted in the emergency department. Materials and methods: A prospective cross sectional study was conducted in the emergency department of Mandya Institute of Medical Science, Mandya for six months. 200 cases were studied and the datas were collected in data entry form and analysed using descriptive statistics. Results: A total of 200 patients received 1141 drugs. Analysis using WHO prescribing indicator shows that the average number of drugs per prescription was 5.70 per prescription. 48.37% of drugs were prescribed from EDL. 69.7% drugs were prescribed by their generic name. Most of the drugs are administered as injections, about 46.71%. Nausea and vomiting (19.0%) was the common reason for admission of patients followed by fever. Most common disorder was of cardiovascular system (25.54%). Antibiotics were the commonly prescribed therapeutic class of drugs (17.18%). Conclusion: Analysis of data showed that even if most drugs were prescribed for appropriate indications the prescribing patterns can be improved.

Keywords: Emergency Department, WHO, Prescribing patterns.