Assessment of Prescribing practice pattern in Governmental Health Centers of Bahir Dar Town, Ethiopia

Abstract

Drug therapy is the most commonly used method of any disease treatment in general practice. However, the patterns of drug prescription are often inappropriate and the need for registration and evaluation of these patterns is essential in an effort to improve prescription standards. Cross sectional prospective study was used. Simple random sampling technique was applied to select 600 patient encounters from six governmental health centers (100 patient encounters for each). Total of 600 prescriptions from six health centers; Abay Mado, Shimbit, Ginbot Haya, Shumabo, Hane and Bahir Dar health centers were analyzed. Average number of drugs per prescription was 1.85. Average percentage of prescription having at least one injection was 14.4%. 100% of prescribed drugs were from essential drug list of Ethiopia. About 41.3% of the patients were prescribed at least one antibiotic. Most of the prescribed drugs (98.3%) were prescribed by their generic name. Percentage of adequately labeled drug packages is very low (24%). Average number of drugs prescribed per prescription is appropriate. Prescribing practices for injections, generic prescribing and prescribing from essential drug list are encouraging. Antibiotic prescribing practices should be improved since the study revealed higher value. Adequate labeling of drug packages (24%) should be improved.