Assessment Of The Current Prescribing Practices And Incidences Of The Prescription Error In A Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Medication errors are one of the foremost common sorts of therapeutic blunder. Roughly 1–2% of conceded patients to the healing
centres are endured since of the medicine blunders, the lion's share of the mistake happens at the time of endorsing, these mistakes can
be possibly prevented. Prescription errors are common, by the help of daily systematic reviews of medication charts which suggest that
as many as 50% of hospital admissions and 7% of medication orders are affected. A study of prescription pattern is an important
tool to determine rational drug therapy, maximize utilization of resources and to reduce prescription errors. The prescriber should
follow the proper guidelines for writing a prescription in order to minimize prescription errors. A prospective observational study was
conducted for a period of 6 months in inpatients department of medicine and pulmonary ward of Shri Mahant Indresh hospital,
Dehradun. A total of 217 subjects were observed from the medicine and pulmonary wards (IPD). Out of which 175 subjects were male
and 42 were female, as compared to females, male’s patients were having more prescription errors (75.5%). An antibiotic was the class
involved in majority of prescription errors. No generic drugs were prescribed. Abbreviations and allergy were the type of prescription
errors identified with more incidences of error as compared to others. The study concluded that the lack of close supervision and
absence of clinical pharmacist could have make things worse. Introduction of quality assurance measures and routine checks with
close supervision of the prescribing intern physicians are strongly recommended.