Abstract

Background: Irrational prescription being a global problem leading to ineffective, unsafe treatment. Aiming to measure the performance of a health-care provider in key dimension related to appropriate use of drugs, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed set of core prescribing indicators. Aims and Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess the drug use pattern using WHO core prescribing indicators.
Materials and Methods: This was a prospective, cross-sectional study conducted at K.S. Hegde Charitable Hospital. Around 900 prescriptions from the outpatients attending the Department of Medicine from January to March 2016 were analyzed for WHO core prescribing indicators and was compared with the standard WHO values.
Results: Polypharmacy being the common finding, the concept of generic prescribing was negligible. There was reduced prescription of drugs from the National List of Essential Medicines, but the prescription of antibiotics and injections was within normal limits.
Conclusions: There was moderate compliance with WHO prescribing indicators.