Patterns of prescription and drug dispensing

Objective: To analyze the patterns of prescriptions and drug dispensing using World Health Organization core drug use indicators and some additional indices. Methods: Data were collected prospectively by scrutinizing the prescriptions written by pediatric resident doctors and by interviewing parents of 500 outpatient children. Results: The average number of drugs per encounter was 2.9 and 73.4% drugs were prescribed by generic name. Majority of drugs prescribed were in the form of syrups (60.8%). Use of antibiotics (39.6% of encounters) was frequent, but injection use (0.2% of encounters) was very low. A high number of drugs prescribed (90.3%) conformed to a model list of essential drugs and were dispensed (76.9%) by the hospital pharmacy. Certain drugs (5.7%) prescribed as syrups were not dispensed, although they were available in tablet form. Most parents (80.8%) knew the correct dosages, but only 18.5% of drugs were adequately labeled. No copy of an essential drugs list was available. The availability of key drugs was 85%. Conclusion: Interventions to rectify over prescription of antibiotics and syrup formulations, inadequate labeling of drugs and lack of access to an essential drugs list are necessary to further improve rational drug use in our facility.