Paediatric Prescription Analysis in a Primary Health Care Institution

Abstract

Introduction

Paediatric prescription analysis was done by vari-ous studies in tertiary care centers but not much published data, at primary care level. The Medical Council of India introduced new prescription format and also antibiotic stewardship program was launched by Government of Kerala in the year 2015. So in these contexts this study was conducted.

Aim

To analyse the patterns of prescriptions and drug dis-pensing in pediatric patients using WHO core drug use indicators and parameters in the prescription format prescribed by Medical Council of India.

Materials and Methods

Prospective study was done at a community health center, for a period of four months where parents of children attending the outpatient department were interviewed and the prescriptions and medicines that is with them was examined and analysed for any prescription errors or dispensing errors. For statistical analysis, quantitative variables were expressed in mean and standard deviation and qualitative variables in percentages.

Results

The mean age of the patients was 6.1 (SD±3.4) years. The average number of drugs prescribed was 2.29 (SD±35.91), 98.4% drugs were prescribed by generic name. Majority of drugs prescribed were in the form of syrups (62.73%), use of antibiotics was frequent (73.18%), but injection use was very minimal (0.006%). Weight of the patient was recorded in 58.33% of the prescriptions. Only 30 prescriptions (5.43%) were written in capital letters. A 100% of the prescriptions contain the details of the child along with provisional diagnosis and signature of the doctor. A 98.44% of the drugs prescribed were from the essential drug list. Copy of the essential drug list is available at the institution. The availability of key drugs was 100%. 98.73% knew the correct dosages and 100% of the drugs were adequately labeled.

Conclusion

The prescription pattern is in accordance with the standard guidelines of WHO. Interventions are needed to rectify over prescription of antibiotics to strengthen antibiotic stewardship program so that emergence of drug resistant strains can be avoided.