Prescription auditing in pediatric in-patients at secondary care Hospital: A cross sectional survey

Prescription is a written communication from a registered medical practitioner to a pharmacist regarding dispensing a medication. For an effective utilization of drugs by the patients, it is essential to carry out prescription audits or evaluation which helps to quantify the errors and look for possible solutions. The parameters followed for prescription audit are patient demographics and prescribing standards. Rational prescribing can help to improve prescribing practices thus reducing prescribing errors to improve the safety of patients. This study was a cross sectional survey conducted on the prescription auditing of the pediatric inpatients. The study was conducted at Secondary Care Public Hospital over a period of six months from December 2018 to May 2019. The study was performed only with the cases present at pediatric inpatient department. A total of 110 prescriptions were audited in which (n=59) prescriptions were found to be male pediatric patients and (n=51) prescriptions were found to be female pediatric patients. The data analysis was carried out using Statistical Process Control and the total number of defects and non- defects observed during the audit were 30.75% (n=609) and 64.34% (n=1274) respectively. Thus this study helped in understanding about the prescribing patterns at secondary care public hospital and the rationale of the drugs prescribed.