Prescription Patterns of Analgesics in a Community Hospital in Nsukka

Analgesics are one of the most prescribed groups of drugs. Faulty prescription patterns in analgesics often results in aggravated side effects and drug interactions leading to serious adverse drug reactions. In this study we examined the prescribing patterns of analgesics in a typical community hospital in Nsukka, Nigeria, using patients’ data forms and questionnaires. 305 prescriptions were analyzed, 97.1% of the patients were prescribed analgesics. 47.0 % and 53.0% of analgesic prescriptions in this community hospital were rational and irrational respectively. Patients with disease conditions such as hernia, gastritis, burns, Koch rule out pneumonia, eclampsia and ovarian cyst had the highest cases of irrational use of analgesic (100%). 84.4% of the patients received non narcotic analgesics while 15.6% received narcotic analgesics. 86.4% of the patients were placed on oral analgesic, 9.1 % were administered analgesics intramuscularly and 4.5% were given analgesics intravenously. Our results provided evidence that the degree of analgesic misuse by the physicians was significant (P< 0.05). Intervention methods should be chosen to improve analgesic prescription through education of the prescribers.