Rational Drug Use in Pediatric Wards of Al-Najaf City: A Prescribing Audit and a Comparative Study with National and International Practices

In an attempt to prevent irrational prescribing and its associated ramifications which have been frequent particularly in pediatric patients, regular auditing of prescribing has gained rising interest. This study was conducted to evaluate medicine prescribing to pediatric patients in Al-Najaf city, Iraq. A cross-sectional study was conducted in pediatric wards of a teaching hospital in Al-Najaf city. 300 discharge prescriptions were collected by convenience sampling and analyzed according to the rational prescribing indicators recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for investigation of drug use in healthcare facilities. The mean of patients’ age was 1.94 year (±3.17, range=1 day to 14 years). Additionally, Pearson's chi-square (X²) and Fisher-exact tests were used to find if there was any association between the socio-demography and the study categorical variables. Results: There was no significant association between socio-demographic characteristics (age and gender) and study categorical variables (non-polypharmacy, injection and antibiotic prescribing). The average number of medications per single prescription was 3.54 (±1.16, range=1 to 8, n=1061). 94.33% was the study result for antibiotic prescriptions, 90.67% for injection prescriptions, 68.33% for generic prescribing and 51.18% for essential medicine list prescribing. The overall index of rational prescribing (IRP) was 2.18.