An ASSESMENT OF LEGIBILITY AND PRESCRIPTION WRITING PRACTICES BY UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL STUDENTS

Abstract

Prescription is an official order issued by a qualified practitioner that authorize a sick person to receive a medicine. Clinical outcome of a disease depends upon the nature of drugs prescribed, dispensed by the pharmacist and patient’s compliance. Prescription writhing is an art learned by medical graduates during their training as medical students.

OBJECTIVES:  It was aimed to assess the clinical skill for prescription writing and its evaluation by 3^rd year medical students. 

  METHODOLOGY:

This study was conducted at Pharmacology Department, University of Health Sciences Lahore, during August 2021 to January 2022. A convenient nonrandom sampling method was adopted. The students were asked to collect 3 copies of prescriptions from different clinical settings.  The collected documents were analyzed during practical classes for omissions of prescriber or patient’s biometrics. Moreover, selection of medicines, route, dose and duration was noted.

RESULTS:

There were 400 prescriptions evaluated. The omissions in patients and prescribers were 28% and 18% respectively. The provisional diagnosis was missing in 19%. The illegibility was 13.5%. On average,3.5 drugs were prescribed per prescription. Analgesics and drugs for peptic diseases were about 24%. There were 15.8% & 14.2% patients taking drugs for infectious diseases and cardiovascular disorders respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms the legibility of prescriptions is good. The magnitude of omissions is high. The shortcomings highlighted in this work can be rectified.

KEYWORDS: Compliance, prescription writing, errors, omissions