ABSTRACT
Background: Medications are an important part of the treatment of patients by clinicians in addition to other measures to be followed by the patients during the entire period of treatment. Objective: To assess patients’ understanding about the use of medications after medicines are dispensed to them by a pharmacist at a tertiary care hospital of Vadodara district in Gujarat. Materials and Methods: It was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted between the time periods of January 2015 and August 2015. A total of 464 patients were interviewed after they had received medications from the pharmacy window. Descriptive statistics were used for summarizing data. Results: Majority of the interviewed subjects belonged to 25–44 years age group with almost equal representation from both gender and new as well as follow-up visit patients. The patients were prescribed on average of 4.14 medicines (standard deviation 2.10). Only 62 participants (13.4%) had a correct understanding about the use of medication in terms of purpose (20.9%), quantity (86.4%), and frequency in a day (73.1%), and relation of its consumption with food (37.2%). The majority (71.2%) took only one attempt by the investigator for a complete understanding of drug dosages after explanation. Conclusion: The understanding of patients about dispensed medications was low, the lowest being the purpose of medication.
ABSTRACT
Background: Setting standards are a dynamic process. To provide quality care at sub-centers (SC), Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) standards are prescribed by Government of India. Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the availability of health services provided by SCs of Vadodara district. Materials and Methods: It was a cross-sectional study carried out at SCs of Primary Health Centres (PHCs) using IPHS standards as a checklist. The assessment was made by visiting 40 SCs of Vadodara district in Gujarat by a single observer. Descriptive statistics were used to present data. Results: About 36 (90%) of the SCs were located within the village and 38 (95%) SCs were easily accessible. The median distance of SC from PHC was 6 km. About 72.5% of SCs were having designated government building. About 52.5% SCs had a residential facility for frontline health workers. Availability for most of the drugs was very poor (below 25% age). Records of oral contraceptive pills usages were available in 34 (85%) of the SCs. The antenatal care services were improved by up to 25% in 10 SCs, while it was decreased to 25% in 13 SCs. Conclusion: The gaps existed in the availability of facilities and its standards at sub-centers. The availability of physical infrastructure and furniture was poor. There was worsening of the performance indicators in the majority of the components as compared to previous year records.