Drug prescription pattern in a Nigerian teaching hospital

Abstract

Background: There is an increasing incidence of irrational drug use worldwide. The drug prescription pattern in Nigeria is characterised by inappropriate drug use which has led to increasing expenditure and loss of patient confidence in the health sector. This has led to calls to improve prescription patterns in Nigerian hospitals.

Materials and Methods: a descriptive cross sectional study was conducted from May 17 2016 to August 16 2016. The case files of 621 patients from outpatient department of the Lagos State University teaching Hospital were analyzed and compared with the WHO prescription indicator criteria using the spss version 16 for statistical analysis.

Results: There were 2020 drugs prescribed. An average of 3.25 (±1.60) drugs was prescribed per patient. The antibiotics prescription rate was 26.89% with 47.10% of medications prescribed as generics and 89.45% from the essential drugs list. The injection prescription rate was 0.84%. Analgesics were the most frequently prescribed medications with prescription rate of 50.89%

Conclusion: Polypharmacy, low use of generic medications and over prescription of antibiotics is still a problem in this facility. There is need to educate health workers especially doctors on rational drug use.