Abstract

Background: Medical audit is an objective and systematic way of evaluating the quality of care provided by physicians. Prescription audit is a part of medical audit and is carried out to check for safe and rational prescribing of medications so that corrective actions can be taken based on analysis wherever applicable. Aim and
Objective: The objective of present study was to analyze the findings of prescription audit performed for indoor cases in tertiary care hospital and to provide appropriate feedback to the prescribers.
Materials and Methods: This was a record based retrospective study conducted at Shree Krishna Hospital, Karamsad, Gujarat. A total of 1809 indoor case files were collected randomly from the Departments of Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Pulmonary Medicine, Orthopaedics, Ophthalmology, Skin, ENT, and Psychiatry. Prescriptions with insufficient patient history were excluded from the analysis.
Results: A total of 1553 case files out of 1809 were found to be suitable for audit. A total of 12,543 formulations were prescribed, of which 9 (0.07%) were unnecessary and 684 (5.45%) were irrational fixed dose combinations (FDCs). Department-wise percentage of irrational FDCs prescribed was found to be highest by ENT (8.58%) followed by pulmonary medicine (8.16%). Cough and cold formulations 325 (47.51%) were the most common irrational FDCs among 684 irrational drugs. Conclusion: Development and implementation of ‘Hospital Formulary’ based on ‘WHO Model List of Essential Medicines’ has had a satisfactory impact on rational use of medicines, though the compliance by someclinicians needs to improve.