Patterns of prescriptions and drug use in two tertiary hospitals in Delhi

The study was carried out to assess prescribing trends in outpatients at Dr. R.P. Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences (RPC) and other OPD's of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Safdarjung hospitals, two premier hospitals in Delhi. Prescriptions of 500 patients were audited and analysed under heads of average number of drugs per patient, percentages of drugs prescribed by generic name, antibiotics, injections, drugs from WHO recommended essential drug list, availability of drugs etc. using WHO basic drug indicators. Prescription analysis showed that 75 to 95% drugs were prescribed from essential drug list. The average number of drugs per prescription was 1.42 to 4.07. Percentage of antibiotics prescribed varied from 14.39% to 22.28%. The use of injections was from nil to 4.4%. Availability of drugs was however, not satisfactory. Though maximum drugs were prescribed from essential drug list, the results indicate that there is a considerable scope for improving prescribing habits according to rational drug use and to provide a feed back to hospital authority for making maximum number of drugs available to the patients.