Prescribing human medicines and magistral preparations in the veterinary practice

Belgian veterinarians can prescribe human medicines or magistral preparations, which the pet owner can take to an official pharmacy to obtain. A survey was composed in order to investigate the usage frequency of such prescriptions; the questionnaire was conducted during the period April 2021-March 2022. Several limitations were observed regarding the availability of the current veterinary medications. A total of 132 Flemish veterinarians took part in the survey. In total, 117 (88.6%) of the participants write prescriptions when practicing veterinary medicine. Of those 117, 94.9% write prescriptions for human medicines, and 55.5% for magistral preparations. The survey also gauged the groups of medicines that veterinarians prescribe most often. As for human medicines, respiratory drugs (72.1%), gastro-intestinal medicines (69.4%) and eye medication (64.9%) were most frequently prescribed; as for magistral preparations, also respiratory (38.5%) and gastro-intestinal drugs (30.8%), and anti -epileptics (30.8%) were most regularly prescribed.