Assessment of Prescription Writing Pattern in a Tertiary Care Center and Hospital at Vidisha Madhya Pradesh: A...

Drug prescription monitoring is important for assessing the quality of prescription and rationality and also to know if there is other drug use out of diagnosis.

This study aimed to assess the quality of prescriptions, whether they have all the parts of prescription or not (having all the parts of prescription like superscription, inscription, subscription, transcription, and signature).

The study is done prospectively from patients when they came for consultation at the outpatient department (OPD) at our tertiary care center. Prescriptions were examined randomly for whether prescriptions have all the parts fulfilled or not. The study period was from November 2023 to May 24. A total of 300 prescriptions were taken in the study.

The average number of drugs per prescription was 3.28 prescriptions, and the fixed drug combinations (FDC) mostly of ibuprofen or aceclofenac combined with paracetamol generic prescribing was 100%. 30% prescription has no history of present and past illness. 55% prescription was not signed by doctors. The findings indicate there is a need for an increase in trainings to treating doctors to fulfill all the parts of a prescription and adherence of prescriptions to NMC guidelines and include conducting educational programs directed for change in attitude among doctors.

This study has shown the need of changes in current prescribing patterns in tertiary care teaching government medical colleges. Regarding the legibility of the prescription, it requires awareness programs for doctors to improve the quality of prescriptions.