Objective: The study was conducted to evaluate prescribing patterns, assess adherence to standard treatment guidelines, and identify areas for improvement in prescription practices across superspeciality OPDs of a tertiary care hospital in Northeast India. Methods: A cross-sectional prescription audit study was conducted over a 3-month period in the superspeciality OPDs of a tertiary care hospital in Northeast India. A total of 600 prescriptions were systematically sampled and analysed using WHO/INRUD prescribing indicators. Statistical analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and appropriate analytical tests. Results: The present study demonstrates that the OPD registration number, date of consultation, and patient gender were consistently recorded in all prescriptions (100%), but complete patient names missing in 1.2% of prescriptions. The handwritings on 11% of prescriptions were not legible. 78.9% of prescriptions included a record of the salient features of the clinical examination, and just 75.1% mentioned a presumptive or definitive diagnosis. The average number of drugs per prescription was 5.39, indicating a trend towards polypharmacy. 88% of drugs were prescribed by their generic names. Antibiotics were prescribed in 12% of encounters. Drugs used by parenteral route were approximately 5% and percentage of drugs prescribed from EDL (Essential Drug List) is 82%. A notable finding was that only 72% of the prescribed medicines were available in the hospital dispensary. Conclusion: The study shows excellent documentation of basic prescription elements and the generic prescribing rates are also commendable. But the trend of polypharmacy and inadequate drug availability require urgent attention.
Borah et al. (Mon,) studied this question.