ABSTRACT
Background: To assess the prescribing indicators in prescriptions of private practitioners in Kolkata. Methods: In the observational, retrospective, cross-sectional survey, 1830 prescriptions of private practitioners were collected over a 5 years period and assessed using core prescribing indicators as per the World Health Organization “How to investigate drug use in health facilities” tool. Results: Overall the average number of drug per prescription was 3.05±0.91. No drug was prescribed by generic name. Prescriptions with an antibiotics and injections were 30% (549/1830) and 8.12% (149/1830), respectively. Drugs prescribed from essential drug list (EDL) were 29.38% (1640/5582). Conclusion: Poly-pharmacy, lack of generic prescribing, low rate of prescriptions from EDL is the present prescribing scenario of private set-up based practitioners of Kolkata. Regulation and intervention is required to improve the irrational prescribing practices.
ABSTRACT
For ancient period moon has been held responsible for many biological activities. That way, lunar cycle, by activity of moon, has been held responsible for increase in number of child birth. In this retrospective, observational study, we examined a total of 9890 full-term spontaneous deliveries as well as non-elective cesarean sections that occurred throughout 12 lunar months (February 7 th , 2008-January 25 th , 2009) in a rural medical college to evaluate the influence of the lunar position on the distribution of deliveries among Indian population. Student's 't' test and ANOVA were used for statistical analysis where each delivery was considered as a single measure. We found no significant differences in the frequency of births during various phase of lunar cycle regardless of route of delivery. Our observations do not support the hypothesis of a relationship between lunar cycle and the frequency of obstetric deliveries.