Title
Assessment of WHO core drug use indicators at a tertiary care Institute of National importance in India
Authors
Santenna Chenchula1*, Rupesh Gupta2, Sunil Kumar Gupta1, R Padmavathi3 & Saman Pathan1
Affiliation
1Department of Pharmacology, AIIMS, Bhopal, India; 2Department of Internal Medicine, Government Medical College, Shahdol, India; 3SVS Medical College, Mahaboobnagar, Telangana, India
Santenna Chenchula – E-mail: csanten7@gmail.com
Rupesh Gupta – E-mail: neolog.raj@gmail.com
Sunil Kumar Gupta – E-mail: sunilgupta.kumar96@gmail.com
R Padmavathi – E-mail: Email: pad.mythili@gmail.com
Saman Pathan – E-mail: Email:pathan.saman88@gmail.com
Article Type
Research Article
Date
Received September 2, 2022; Revised October 3, 2022; Accepted October 6, 2022, Published October 31, 2022
Abstract
Rational prescribing of medicines is an important aspect of drug prescribing which helps in safe and efficacious and cost-effective drug treatment for patients. WHO Prescription indicators are intended to evaluate the services provided to the population concerning the rational use of medicines. The study aims to study prescription practices and rational use of medicines in the department of Internal medicine, using WHO prescribing indicators in a tertiary care teaching institute of national importance. A total of 50 prescriptions were digitally photographed and analysed for prescription practices and rational drug use, using standard WHO core prescribing indicators. A total of 301 drugs with multiple and diverse diagnoses were used. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS 22 version. The average number of drugs per prescription was 3.48%. It was found that only 13.79% of prescriptions have generic names, whereas 27.58% of patient encounters had at least one drug from the National List of Essential Medicine, 6.8% of prescriptions have antibiotics and 0.7% of prescriptions were injections. The number of prescriptions with fixed drug combinations was 27.55%. Indicators such as percentage of the National List of Essential Medicine, fixed drug combinations and prescribing with a generic name are used. Hence, we will suggest regular prescription audit practices and conducting CMEs and training workshops for clinicians for the rational use of medicines in all healthcare settings to succeed in the rational use of medicine.
Keywords
Rational use of medicines, internal medicine, essential medicines, prescription practices, generic name, WHO core prescribing indicators.
Citation
:Chenchula et al. Bioinformation 18(10):888-893 (2022)
Edited by
P Kangueane
ISSN
0973-2063
Publisher
License
This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
