Abstract:

Introduction:Prescription pattern explains the extent and profile of drug use, trends, quality of drugs and compliance with regional, state or national guidelines. Assessment of drug use patterns with the WHO drug use indicators is becoming increasingly necessary to promote rational use of drugs. Rational use of drug means each individual receives right medicine, in adequate amounts and in appropriate doses that meet their own requirements. Some examples of irrational prescription are over-and under-prescribing, polypharmacy, and unreasonable use of expensive drugs and inappropriate use of antibiotics.

Methodology:Data was collected by using data collection tool kit obtained from WHO/INDRUD on prescribing indicators, containing variables which included patients’ names, date of prescribing, age of the patient, number of generic names, number of antibiotics and injection obtained data was entered in Microsoft Excel 2010.

Results: The total numbers of drugs prescribed in generic names were 1848 which is equivalent to 91.5% with the mean average of 3.1 and standard deviation of 1.4. Among the 600 prescriptions, those with antibiotics were 333 encounters (55.5%) the mean of 0.7 and standard deviation of 0.8.
Among the 600 prescriptions, those with injections were 66 encounters (11.0%) with the mean of 0.2 and standard deviation of 0.5

Conclusion: The study revealed that there was irrational use of drugs this is due of poor adherence to prescription pattern at Outpatient pharmacies. And polypharmacy was practiced since the average number of drugs per encounter was high. There was also high rate of the use of antibiotics. Generic prescribing and injection per prescription were found to be at a lower limit compared to WHO prescribing indicators. Therefore in order to improve adherence there is a need for introduction of interventions to improve prescribing practices by continued training of prescribers on rational drug use.