A Study of Prescription Practice for Drugs in Rural Area of Dehradun, Uttarakhand, Using WHO Indicators

Background It has been seen in recent decades that there is a lot of development in the field of medicine all over the world. This leads to flooding of medicines in the market. Developing countries are also not behind in this regard but there is lack of standards at all levels for medical treatment. The health care delivery system should be improved to secure the quality of life. In the case of Indian markets, it is also consumed with more than 70,000 formulations, compared to approximately 350 formulations listed in the World Health Organization (WHO) Essential Drug List. Several studies conducted in different regions of India have reported that most prescriptions in India are of drugs with “unclear efficiency.” Developing countries need to promote rational drug use which can be achieved by assessing the drug use patterns with the WHO drug use indicators

Objective The present study was conducted in a rural area of Dehradun to assess the medicine prescriptions patterns among health facilities in this area using WHO Medication Use indicators. Material and Method: In this study, one hundred patients were interviewed about their socioeconomic statues along with complete medication history and ongoing medications, in a prescribed format. WHO guidelines were used for analyzing the data using Microsoft excel. The study was conducted in danda lakhond a rural area of Dehradun, Uttarakhand.

Result We encountered various astonishing results in this study. The gender ratio for the present study was (78:22) for male: female subjects. Socioeconomic status of the study population was significantly good concerning literacy as only 03% of people were illiterate. Total prescribed drug products were 152; this indicates that an average number of drugs per prescription was 1.52. The generic drugs prescribed in this study were 113 which are 74% of the total number of drugs prescribed. When compared with (National List of essential medicines) of India nearly all prescribed drugs (n=152, 98 %) were included in the list. The present study included 10 therapeutic categories of the Prescribed drug, most prescribed drugs (n=34, 34%) were antibiotics in the study area and least prescribed drugs were antiviral drugs i.e. Only (n=03, 3%).

Discussion The present study was an attempt to identify the prescribing pattern of drugs in a rural area of Dehradun Uttarakhand. A small study population was interviewed for this assessment. We concluded that prescription practices were good and WHO standards were followed in prescribing the medicines. Although, some parameters should also be corrected for WHO guidelines such as usage of antibiotics in prescriptions practices, average medicines prescribed per patient, and information regarding dosage form prescribed to patients.