A retrospective analysis of prescribing practices through WHO prescribing indicators at four selected hospitals of west Ethiopia

4^th International Conference on Pharmaceutical Regulatory Affairs

September 08-10, 2014 DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Raleigh-Brownstone-University, USA

Jimma Likisa Lenjisa and Tadese Haile Fereja

Accepted Abstracts: Pharmaceut Reg Affairs

Abstract :

Introduction: Periodic assessment of the prescribing practices in a health facility is necessary to identify specific drug use problems, sensitize practitioners on rational drug prescription and provide policy makers with relevant information that could be useful in review of drug procurement policies and implementation of policies on drug prescribing practices in the affected institutions and regions. The purpose of this survey is, therefore, to analysis the prescribing practice of clinicians using world health organization (WHO) prescribing indicators at four selected public hospitals found in west Ethiopia with ultimate goal of ensuring rational drug use. Methods: This study was a descriptive cross-sectional survey which investigated the prescribing practices of professionals using WHO core prescribing indicators at four systematically selected hospitals in west Ethiopia. We have retrospectively reviewed 2024 prescriptions found in outpatient pharmacies of each hospital selected through systematic random sampling over one year period from January to September 2013. Descriptive statistics were determined using excel for all prescribing indicators and presented using tables and figures. Results: In this work, the mean number of drugs per prescription was 2.1±0.5. Generic, antibiotics and injection prescribing were found to be 79.2%, 54.7% and 28.3% respectively with less than half (45.3%) of these sampled prescriptions had diagnosis for which drugs are indicated. Whereas drugs prescribed from essential drug list/formulary of the country constituted 83.0% which is far less than the ideal limit. Conclusion: The findings in this study are similar to what had been reported by most of the previous studies. Generally, all the prescribing indicators studied are out of the ranges recommended by WHO implying that there is deep rooted irrational prescribing practice in hospitals of Ethiopia. Therefore, urgent and well organized interventions should be implemented by federal ministry of health and drug regulatory bodies found at different levels in order to foster rational drug use in the country.

Biography :

Gannu Praveen Kumar has completed his MPharmacy from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani and PhD from Kakatiya University. He is the Principal of Sahasra Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Warangal. He has published more than 30 papers in reputed journals and is also serving as an advisor and consultant of repute pharmaceutical companies and participated in many social activities.