[Unreasonable consumption of narcotic drugs following appendectomy and hernioraphy]

ABSTRACT

Unreasonable consumption of narcotic drugs may cause several problems such as the incidence of some side effects, dependence and inappropriate pain relief. Drug Utilization Review [DUR] program - that nowadays is one of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education's priorities - is to assess the problems of drug prescribing and usage, and present reforming suggestion to medical providers. This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed in surgical ward of one of Tehran's hospitals for Two Six months' periods. At first a standard protocol was prepared. All hospitalized patients who had received narcotic drugs via injection after surgery entered the study. In whole 200 reviewed patients, generally 26 [13%] patients taking narcotic drugs were according to protocol and 174 [87%] cases were against the protocol. In this cross-sectional study only 49 of 100 patients had pain relief after receiving narcotic drugs via injection. Physician orders were inappropriate and in 13 [6.5%] cases, there was no medical prescription. 50% of patients still had pain after drug injection that was due to medical providers' concern for drug dependence in patients and lack of due supervision by the physician in charge