The Impact of Real Prescription Examples on Prescription Writing Skills of Medical Students: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Introduction : Irrational drug use, a worldwide problem poses global health and economic risks. Good prescribing involves accurate, complete and legible prescription writing. Effective prescribing entails accurate, complete, and legible prescription writing. Objective : To assess the impact of incorporating real examples of illegible or incomplete prescriptions into the rational drug use course on the prescription writing skills of medical students at Kabul University of Medical Science (KUMS). Method : A quasi-experimental study with participation of 104 forth-year medical students at the Faculty of Medicine, KUMS, was carried out. The control group (n = 53( attended the regular course on rational drug use without any modifications, the intervention group (n = 51) participated in a course that included critiquing real prescriptions in addition to the regular curriculum. The students were evaluated by assessing their written prescriptions and their ability to identify prescription writing-related shortcomings in other prescriptions. Results : The intervention group had higher test scores in prescription writing (88.36% vs. 48.35%) and better performance in identifying shortcomings (69.77% vs. 41.41%) compared to the control group. Notable progress was observed in areas requiring improvement. Conclusion : The study demonstrated that critiquing and assessing real eligible/incomplete prescriptions during the rational drug use course for undergraduates had a positive impact on prescription writing skills. This approach can also be utilized to teach various aspects of pharmacotherapy if appropriate de-identified cases with sufficient additional patient’s medical records are carefully chosen.