Assessment of Prescribing Practices through WHO Prescribing Indicators at Nekemte Referral Hospital, West Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: The ultimate goal of drug utilization related studies are to figure out the actual practices on the ground, and comparison of that with set standard, so that improvement can be made to achieve maximum possible health out come for a patient. One of the players of this game to achieve this goal is prescribers on which this study spins. Methods: This study was a descriptive cross-sectional survey which investigated the prescribing practices of prescribers using WHO core prescribing indicators at Nekemte Referral Hospital in west Ethiopia. 770 Prescriptions were retrospectively reviewed in outpatient pharmacy of the hospital selected through systematic random sampling over the period from January 2, 2015 to March 2, 2015. Results: Of all prescriptions, the mean numbers of drugs per prescriptions were 2.1, the generic name prescribing practices were 98.26%, and prescriptions carrying antibiotics were 69 %, while those carrying injections were 21.94%. Out of all drugs prescribed in the hospital, 1.74% of them were not found in Ethiopian STG. Also 18.45% of them were with incorrect name and strength, 11.82% haven’t the right doses, and 6% haven’t right frequency, while 20.5% of them haven’t right duration of treatment. Conclusion: On the basis of the finding of this study, the prescribing practices for antibiotic use and poly Pharmacy show deviation from the standard recommended by WHO. These two commonly overused and high probability of drug side effect and interaction forms of drug therapy need to be regulated closely. Drug use evaluation should be done for some of the antibiotics to check whether they were appropriately prescribed or not. On the other hand, injection use, generic prescribing and prescribing from EDL were not found to be a problem in this study. Referral hospitals have a special responsibility to society to prescribe selectively with strong caution to save lives of patients as a final treatment facility.