Jimma Likisa Lenjisa and Tadese Haile Fereja
Background: Periodic assessment of the prescribing practices in a health facility is necessary to identify specific drug use problems, sensitize practitioners on rational drug prescription and provide policy makers with relevant information. The purpose of this survey is, therefore, to analysis the prescribing practice of clinicians using world health organization (WHO) prescribing indicators at four selected public hospitals found in west Ethiopia with ultimate goal of ensuring rational drug use.
Methods: This study was a descriptive cross-sectional survey which investigated the prescribing practices of prescribers using WHO core prescribing indicators at four selected hospitals in west Ethiopia. We have retrospectively reviewed 2024 prescriptions found in outpatient pharmacies of each hospital selected through systematic random sampling over one year period from July to September 2013.
Results: In this work, the mean number of drugs per prescription was 2.1 ± 0.5. Generic, antibiotics and injection prescribing were found to be 79.2%, 54.7% and 28.3% respectively. Less than half (45.3%) of these sampled prescriptions had diagnosis for which drugs are indicated. Whereas drugs prescribed from essential drug list/ formulary of the country constituted 83.0% which is far less than the ideal limit.
Conclusion: The findings in this study are similar to what had been reported by most of the previous studies. Generally, all the prescribing indicators studied are out of the ranges recommended by WHO implying that there is deep rooted irrational prescribing practice in hospitals of Ethiopia. Therefore, urgent and well organized interventions should be implemented by federal ministry of health and drug regulatory bodies found at different levels in order to foster rational drug use in the country.
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