Assessment of drug use patterns in terms of the WHO patient-care and facility indicators at four hospitals in Southern Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Patient-centered care is now the goal for virtually all healthcare systems. The aim of this research was to evaluate the patient care quality in regard to drug dispensing in four hospitals in southern Ethiopia namely Wolaita Sodo University teaching and referral hospital (WSUTRH), Tercha zonal hospital (TZH), Sodo Christian hospital (SCH) and Dubo St. Mary's Catholic primary hospital (DSMCPH). METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted by using the WHO patient care and facility indicators between September 10 and October 20, 2014. Patients who visited the outpatient departments of the four hospitals were selected by systematic random sampling method and interviewed. In total 384 patients were selected based on a rough estimate of proportion of patients visiting to the four hospitals. Facility indicators including the availability of essential drugs list (EDL), national drug formulary, standard treatment guideline (STG) and key drugs were evaluated. Descriptive statistical calculations were performed using SPSS® version 20.0 software. RESULT: The mean number of drugs was in the range between 1.9 ± 0.9 to 2.2 ± 2.0. The mean consultation time range was found to be 4.2 ± 1.6 to 4.9 ± 5.0 min whereas the mean dispensing time was ranged from 96.1 ± 52.0 to 152.3 ± 47.6 s. The overall mean number of drug prescribed for the four hospitals was 2.0 ± 1.2 and the mean percentage of medications actually dispensed in the hospitals was thus calculated to be 86.3. The mean percentage of medications clearly labeled was 45.4. Patients who knew their dosage forms accurately were 78.8. Among the four hospitals evaluated only one hospital (25 %) had at least a copy of the Ethiopian essential drug list (EDL), standard treatment guideline for hospitals and drug formulary. The mean availability of key drugs in the hospitals was found to be 65.7 %. CONCLUSION: The result of the present study indicates that the patient consulting time, medications labeling and availability of key drugs in the hospitals are inadequate. The medication labeling practice in the four hospitals is unacceptably low. These patient care indicators need a special attention for improvement.

Evaluation of trends of drug-prescribing patterns based on WHO prescribing indicators at outpatient departments of four hospitals in southern Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: Rational prescribing is a primary step to ensure rational drug use. Often, half of the medicines are prescribed irrationally and half of these are even used incorrectly as the patients fail to take their medicines appropriately. The aim of this research was to evaluate drug-prescribing patterns of four hospitals in southern Ethiopia. METHODS: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted between May 15 and June 25, 2014, to evaluate the drug-prescribing patterns based on the World health Organization (WHO) prescribing indicators. The prescription papers, kept for the last 1 year in the outpatient departments of the four hospitals, were analyzed according to WHO guidelines. Also, prescriptions in the hospitals were analyzed to determine the most frequently prescribed drugs. All the statistical calculations were performed using SPSS(®) version 20.0 software. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The average number of drugs per prescription ranges from 1.82±0.90 to 2.28±0.90, whereas the percentage of use of antibiotics and injections ranged from 46.7 to 85 and 15 to 61.7, respectively. The average percentages of drugs prescribed by generic name and from the essential drugs list were 95.8 and 94.1, respectively. Anti-infective and analgesic drugs are found to be the most frequently prescribed medicines. In terms of polypharmacy, there was a slight deviation in prescribing patterns from what is acceptable according to the WHO criteria. Prescribing by generic name and from essential drug list was almost optimal. There was a significant deviation in the use of injectables in two of the four hospitals (50%), whereas their use in the other two hospitals was within the acceptable range. The use of antibiotics in all the hospitals in present study was higher than the acceptable range. CONCLUSION: Generally, it seems that there is need for improvement of the prescribing patterns in the hospitals, although this should be consolidated with further studies to link the patient diagnosis and the prescribed medications.