Assessment of Completeness of Prescription and Rational Drug Use Practice at Felege Hiwot Referral Hospital, North West Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Rational drug use is a tool through which safe, effective and economic medication is provided. Rational prescribing and dispensing ensure adherence to treatment and protects drug consumers from unnecessary adverse drug reactions.

Objective: The assessment of the rational drug use practice and completeness of prescription is important to identify the most common drug use problem and propose appropriate interventions. Methodology: A combination of retrospective and prospective quantitative cross sectional study was conducted in outpatient pharmacy .Drug containing prescriptions (n=669) prescribed from July 1, 2014 to September 30, 2015 were selected by systematic sampling technique for prescriber indicators analysis and patients interviewed (n=90) for patient care indicator analysis.

Results: The mean number of drugs per prescription was 1.46; percentage of prescriptions containing less than two drugs per prescription was 85.05%. Antibiotics and injection were prescribed in prescription were 42.04 %, 0.73% respectively. The weight of the patient was omitted 100% and the diagnoses of 87% were not written. The strength and duration of the drug were clearly stated in 81.89%, 74.61% of the prescriptions respectively. 32.74% and 20.93% of the prescriptions contain the name of the prescribers and dispensers respectively. 80 (88.89%) of patients interviewed had adequate knowledge of how to take the medication prescribed. From all drugs received by the patients only 68.03% were adequately labeled. The average counseling and dispensing time was 1 min 20sec and 11min 54 sec respectively.

Conclusion: From the results of the study, we can be concluded that not all prescriptions were complete as few of them lack the necessary information. So there is a need for managerial and educational intervention to improve rational drug use and to enhance good prescribing and dispensing practices.

Keywords: rational drug use, patient care indicators, prescribing indicators, EDL, tracer drug

DOI: 10.7176/JHMN/60-02

Publication date:March 31^st 2019