ABSTRACT
Background: Writing a prescription is a combination of science and art. Good quality prescriptions are a sign of prescriber’s expertise. World Health Organization has defined certain parameters to promote rational drug use in all countries. This study was designed to assess the prescription writing practices in a government tertiary care hospital in Haryana by using WHO prescribing indicators.Methods: A total of 2155 prescriptions were evaluated. Each prescription was evaluated for average number of drugs prescribed per patient per encounter, percentage of drugs prescribed by generic name, percentage of encounters with an antibiotic prescribed, percentage of encounters with an injection prescribed and percentage of medicines from Essential drug list prescribed. These indicators help us to check polypharmacy, practice of prescribing drugs by brand names, antibiotic overuse, preference of injectables and non-adherence to Essential drug list.Results: The average number of drugs prescribed per patient per encounter was calculated to be 3.25±0.24. The percentage of medicines prescribed by generic names was 35.89%. Percentage of encounters with an antibiotic prescribed was 48.21 % and with an injection prescribed was 1.85%. The percentage of medicines form NLEM was 76.36%.Conclusions: The values of WHO prescribing indicators obtained from this study show that there are some areas where the prescribers need to improve their prescribing practices.
ABSTRACT
This study was aimed to reveal the species characteristics of Chinese patent medicines for antitussive ef-fect and provide references for developing new drugs. This research targeted Chinese patent medicines for antitussive effect which were included in the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China and the New National Chinese Patent Medicines as well as those characterized by keywords such as cough cure, cough alleviating, antitussive effect, cough, persistent cough. The analysis was made on the species characteristics, such as the number of Chinese patent medicines for antitussive effect, license number, ethnomedicine patent medicines, drugs for children use, protection of varieties of traditional Chinese medicine, the number of drugs, the generic names of drug, and drug forms. The results showed that 684 Chinese patent medicines for antitussive effect collected in this research had ac-counted for 8.60% of the total 7 260 of Chinese patent medicines. A total of 7 450 license numbers were approved, and 33% of the Chinese patent medicines shares one license number. One Chinese patent medicine owns 16.6 li-cense numbers on average. Ethnomedicine patent medicines had 3 Tibetan prescriptions such as the Shiwuwei Chenxiang pill and 4 Mongolian prescriptions, such as the Siwei Tumuxiang powder. Drugs for children accounted for 14%, including 9 forms. The type of the generic names of drug reached 16 and most of them originate from abbrevia-tions of the main drug in prescription. The number of drugs in prescription ranges from 8 to 16. Chinese patent medicines for antitussive effect involved 16 forms, of which the proportion of the use of solid preparation was higher than the liquid preparation. It was concluded that Chinese patent medicines for antitussive effect were characterized by such advantages such as a variety of species, various forms, the reasonable number of drugs, considerable medicine retail market share and drug for children use which can meet the clinical needs, and meanwhile some prob-lems, such as a lack of criteria for the generic names of drug, the homogenization of fierce competition, and inade-quacy of ethnomedicine patent medicines.