Vol. 9, Issue 11, Part C (2023)

Introduction: The World Health Organization defines rational use of a drug as the patients must receive medication that is appropriate to their clinical needs, in doses that meet their requirements for a sufficient amount of time, and at the lowest possible cost to them and their community.

Materials and Methods: Hospital-based prospective cross-sectional study design was conducted to evaluate rational drug use (RDU) based on WHO prescribing indicators in the G.S.V.M. Medical College, Kanpur and associated hospital. Data was collected between 15 February 2023 to 17 March 2023 by 3rd year M.B.B.S students during their scheduled elective posting.

Results: For a total of 500 prescriptions analyzed, 1561 drugs were prescribed in total, denoting the average number of drugs prescribed per prescription to be 3.12. The average was found to be highest (5.95) in the department of Skin and VD and lowest in the Paediatrics department (2.6). The “antibiotic” usage was high in Surgery department (28.48%) whereas it was found to be lowest in ophthalmology department (0%). Injectable prescribed were found to be highest in ENT department (5.08%). Maximum number of prescriptions (297) belonged to Medicine department. Out of the total of 1561 drugs, 1463 drugs were prescribed most commonly by oral route. Among them, 63.93% were prescribed by branded names, while the remaining 36.06% was prescribed by generic names. 83% of the total drugs prescribed were from the Essential Drug List (EDL).

Conclusion: The study revealed trends in outpatient department prescribing practices and the rationality of drug use in a tertiary care hospital with a focus on prescribing medications rationally, which can result in more cost-effective patient care. There is a need to increase the generic medications in the prescription and to increase the number of prescriptions from the essential drugs list.