Quality of prescription at a tertiary care pharmacy in Addis Ababa

The practice of prescribing is one of the critical factors that ensure safety and rational use of drugs. The objective of this study was to describe the quality of prescription in terms of format, legibility and content. The study was carried out in Tikur Anbessa Hospital outpatient pharmacy. All prescriptions that came to the hospital pharmacy over one week period were collected and analyzed. A total of 2191 prescriptions were received by the hospital pharmacy. Only few of the prescriptions had complete information. In about 50% of the prescriptions sex and age were not recorded. On average 15% of the prescriptions were not eligible. Only 13% of the prescriptions received during weekdays, and 8.5% of those received during weekends were scored as good (more than 5 variables out of 8 assessed were rated good). There was no significant difference in the quality between the prescriptions received from Tikur Anbessa hospital and other health institutions. Furthermore, weekday prescriptions were better in quality as compared to weekend prescriptions without considerable difference between day and night shifts. These findings indicate that considerable proportion of prescriptions are not properly written. Since Tikur Anbessa is a teaching center, immediate action needs to be taken to improve the practice of prescription writing.