Abstract

ASSESSMENT OF PRESCRIPTION PATTERN OF PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS IN NEKEMTE REFERRAL HOSPITAL, EAST WOLLEGA, WESTERN ETHIOPIA

Objective: Psychotropic medications are widely prescribed and the utilization of antipsychotic drugs is increasing. Prescribing psychotropic medication is unlike prescribing other drugs because there are many factors involved and variations of prescribing patterns have been observed. There is no enough information on the patterns of drug use in different part of the world including Ethiopia. Hence, this study aimed to assess prescribing patterns of psychotropic drugs and to detect potential prescribing errors in psychiatric patients in Nekemte Referral Hospital.

Method: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted on prescription containing psychotropic drugs in Nekemte Referral Hospital from February to April 2016. About 362 Prescription papers of one year (2015-2016) was obtained from pharmacy records. Systematic random sampling technique was used to select the required sample

Results: Majority of the patients attending the psychotropic medication were within the age of between 20-49 years. The most commonly prescribed categories of drugs were antipsychotics (40.16%) and tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) (23.33%). From anti-psychotic chlorpromazine 132 (20.95%) and from antidepressant categories Amitriptyline 82 (13.02%) were the frequently prescribed individual drugs. Out of the 630 medications prescribed, 516(81.90%) were written by generic name, 51(8.10%) written by brand name and 63 (10% written by abbreviation. On the other hand, 339(93.65%) medication orders did not bear this stamp and 6(1.66%) did not have specific date of prescription. Regarding the number of drugs per prescriptions, more than half of the prescriptions (52.21%) were containing two drugs. According to the WHO prescribing criteria, a total of 214 omissions errors and 14 inappropriate prescribing were detected.

Conclusion: Antipsychotic drugs were the most-prescribed psychotropic drug, followed by antidepressant drugs. Identifying and correcting prescribing and medication problems are the common duty of all professionals. So, interdisciplinary communication should be improved among them.