Prescribing trends in a teaching hospital in Nepal

Abstract

Prescriptions of the patients at the time of admission to the college of Medical Sciences (CMS), Bharatpur, Nepal were collected for a period of 6 months to study the prescribing pattern in a teaching hospital. The prescriptions were subjected to critical evaluation using WHO basic drug use indicators. The average number of drugs per prescription was 4.34. Percentage of drugs prescribed by generic name and percentage of fixed drug combinations (FDCs) were 22.57 and 17.49 respectively. The percentage of prescriptions containing antimicrobials (72.05%) and injections(66.66%) were relatively more in our study. Percentage of drugs prescribed from the WHO essential drug list and the Nepal essential drug list were 41.76% and 38.20% respectively. The most commonly used group of drugs were antimicrobials(32.27%) ,followed by analgesics(11.85%) and drugs for acid-peptic-disorders(10.72%). The present drug utilization study is to give feedbacks to the prescribers, so as to create awareness about the rational use of drugs.