Study of drug prescribing pattern in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Jharkhand

Abstract

Background: In India irrational prescription of drugs is very common. So audit of prescription must be done time to time to improve its quality. The prescriptions were analyzed based on the objective of the study for promoting rational use of drugs in a population. Objective of this study are: 1) Obtaining information about demographic profile of the patients attending OPD. 2) Collect information about no. of drugs and their dosage forms prescribed. 3) Frequency of common category of drugs prescribed. 4) Percentage of drugs prescribed by generic names and fixed dose combinations (FDCs). Method: It was a cross sectional study conducted at outpatient department (OPD) over a period of six months from December 2015 to May 2016. Result: Total 1012 prescriptions were collected and analyzed. 28.56% patients were 20 to 29 years age group. 31.73% were females. About half (49.21%) of prescriptions were from medicine department. Most prescribed group of drugs were antibiotics (27.01%) followed by drugs acting on gastro intestinal tract (GIT) drugs 18.96% and analgesics 18.48%. Nutritional supplements were 10.90%. Maximum 38.08% of prescriptions showed 3 drugs, 22.22% showed 4 drugs, while 4.76% showed only 1 drug. The most prescribed dosage form was tablet 66.5% whereas only 0.97% was injection. Out of total prescribed drugs only 29.4% were prescribed by their generic names whereas 10.05% were FDCs. Conclusion: Prescription writing pattern is poor in terms of no. of drugs per prescription, overuse of antibiotics and fixed dose combination. So it needs improvement to decrease burden on the patients and wastage of resources.