Prescription Audit of Outpatient Departments of a Tertiary Care Hospital in Maharashtra

Prescription Audit is one of the methods to assess drug utilization and rationality of prescribing. Irrational prescribing is a worldwide problem. It is due to the faulty prescribing habits, lack of training amongst health care personnel, pressure from the pharmaceutical companies, and a lot of other reasons.

The study was conducted by noting the details of patients admitted during 3 months. Prescriptions were collected from the OPDs of medicine, surgery, obstetrics & gynecology, pediatrics, orthopedic randomly.

One thousand prescriptions were analyzed in which 1986 drugs were prescribed. Mean number of drugs per prescription was 6.49%. 63.34% drugs were prescribed. Dosage forms used were mostly oral (69.54%). Infectious and parasitic diseases were the most common illnesses (16.01%) followed by diseases of respiratory system. The incidence of poly-pharmacy was common with maximum number of prescriptions (26.8%) having 5 drugs per prescription. 77% of the prescriptions contained only one diagnosis. The average number of drugs per prescription was 3.1. 60% of the drugs were prescribed by generic names and 23% of the prescribed drugs were in combination. 25% of the prescriptions contained at least one injection, while 35% contained at least one antibiotic. In 16% of the prescriptions a vitamin or tonic was prescribed.

Prescription audit is an important measure to improve the quality of care afforded by the hospital. By this data we conclude that poly-pharmacy is quite common.