Assessment of the Prescription Completeness and Drug Use Pattern in Public Versus Private Hospital, North West Ethiopia

Introduction: About one-third of the world’s population lack access to essential medicines. Many of those have access are use irrationally. Inappropriate prescribing is one of the manifestations of irrational medicine use. Objective: The aim of the study is to assess prescription completeness and drug use pattern in public and private hospitals using the World Health Organization core drug use indicators. Methods: 1200 prescriptions were collected retrospectively from prescriptions written for 1 year from outpatient pharmacies of the two hospitals. Exit interview was conducted to assess patient care indicators and health facility indicators were assessed through observation. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20. Results: All prescriptions contains treatment information (Drug name, Drug strength, Drug dose, Frequency and Duration ) except Dosage form which was 12.8% in public hospitals .While only drug name and dose stated in all prescription in private hospitals. The average number of drugs per prescription was higher in public (2.92) than private (2.26) hospital. Percentage of encounter with antibiotic was higher in private hospital 99.8% than public hospital 77.7%. However, the percentage of encounter with injection was higher in public hospital (41.5%) than private hospital (25.5 %). The mean consultation time and dispensing time were 4.86 and 1.84 minutes, in public hospitals and 3.94 and 1.96 in private hospitals respectively. The percentage of drugs actually dispensed was 92.7% in private and 81.5% in public hospital, but only less than 12% of dispensed drugs were adequately labelled. A copy of essential Drug List was available in both hospitals. Conclusion: Almost all prescriptions were not complete in both hospitals. All drug use indicators were out of the WHO recommendation. Therefore, effective intervention program such as sensitization for practitioners on rational medicine prescription is recommended