Assessment of drug prescription practice using who prescribing indicators in Felege Hiwot referral hospital (FHRH) outpatient department, North Ethiopia

Drug therapy is the most commonly used method of any disease treatment in general practice. However, the patterns of drug prescription are often inappropriate and the need for registration and evaluation of these patterns is essential in an effort to improve prescription standards. Cross sectional retrospective study was used. Prescriptions were selected by using simple random sampling technique from accumulated prescriptions over a period of six months (May 2013 to October 2013). The Data was evaluated using standardized World Health Organization prescription indicators for studies of rational drug use. Data was collected from prescriptions by using pre-prepared data collection tool. The average number of drugs per encounter was 1.83; with 97.4% drugs prescribed by generic names. 38% & 10.8% of the prescriptions contained encounters with antibiotics and injections use respectively. 100% of drugs prescribed were from the essential drugs list of Ethiopia. It is concluded from the study that the number of drugs prescribed per encounter, prescribing practices for injections, generic prescribing and prescribing from essential drug list are encouraging, whereas prescribing practices for antibiotic need to be regulated closely since study shows deviation from the standard recommended by World Health Organization guideline.