Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Department of Community Medicine, MAMC, New Delhi, India
2 Departments of Community Medicine and Anaesthesiology, MGM Medical College, Kishanganj, Bihar,
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The inappropriate use of drugs is a global health problem, especially in developing
country like India. Irrational prescriptions have an ill effect on health as well as health‑care expenditure.
Prescription auditing is an important tool to improve the quality of prescriptions, which in turn improves
the quality of health care provided. The present study was conducted to investigate the rational use of
drugs for completeness, legibility, and against the World Health Organization (WHO)‑recommended
core drug use indicators.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross‑sectional, outpatient department‑based study was carried
out in a rural hospital of Delhi wherein 120 prescriptions were randomly sampled, irrespective of
patient characteristics and diagnosis over a period of 1 month. All the prescriptions were analyzed
for general details, medical components, and WHO core drug use indicators. The data obtained were
summed up and presented as descriptive statistics using the Microsoft Excel and were analyzed
using SPSS version 16.
RESULTS: All the prescriptions had general details mentioned in it. The diagnosis was mentioned
in 64.2% of prescriptions, and 85.8% of drugs were prescribed by generic name. An average of 3.02
drugs per encounter was prescribed. The average consultation time and dispensing time were 2.8 min
and 1.2 min, respectively. Only half of the patients had correct knowledge of dose.
CONCLUSIONS: Our study highlights the need to train our prescribing doctors on writing rational
prescriptions for quality improvement.
Keywords
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