[Drug prescription practices in public medical centres in Gabon]

Inappropriate drug use constitutes a major problem of health programs in developing countries. The objective of this study was to describe and assess the quality of drug prescription practices in public medical centres in Gabon.

Using the Drug Use Prescribing Indicators developed collaboratively by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Network for Rational Use of Drugs (INRUD), we retrospectively evaluated the drugs prescribed during 1,200 randomly selected outpatient consultations that took place in 20 randomly selected public medical centres during the period between July 1, 1997 and June 30, 1998.

A total of 3,054 drugs were prescribed during the 1,200 consultations under study, for an average of 2.6 (Standard Deviation: +/- 1.2) drugs per consultation. Of all the drugs prescribed, 13.5% (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 12.3-14.7) were prescribed under their international nonproprietary name (INN), while 57.1% (CI: 55.3-58.9) appeared on the national list of essential drugs. 64.5% (CI: 61.8-67.2) consultations resulted in the prescription of an antibiotic, while 21.8 % (CI: 19.5-24.1) led to the prescription of at least one injection. On average, six key drugs out of eleven were available in the medical centres visited.

The results of this study suggest that drug prescriptions are far from optimal in the public medical centers in Gabon. Among other things, the prescription of drugs under their INN is very low. These findings highlight the need to develop and implement programs that seek to improve the quality of drug prescriptions in Gabon.