Drug prescription pattern in primary healthcare centers in southwest Nigeria. A cohort analysis of primary health workers prescription records

Introduction: Rational use of Drugs is the prescription and dispensation of drugs to the appropriate patients in appropriate doses, for required period and at lowest cost to them and their community. Irrational use refers to inappropriate use of drugs which include prescription and dispensation of too many drugs (polypharmacy), unnecessary and overuse of antibiotics and use of injection where oral drug suffices. A step towards preventing irrational drug use is to document it in a study such as this, so that appropriate corrective steps can be taken.
Methods: This was a cross sectional cohort analysis of the prescribing records of primary health care workers from eight primary health care facilities.
Result & Discussion: There were 513 prescriptions of 2, 590 drugs from the eight facilities;206 (40%) from a cohort of two comprehensive health centres and 307(60%) from a cohort of six basic health clinics. 206(40%) was diagnosis-based prescriptions, while 307(60%) was not based on diagnosis. About 426(83%) contain antibiotics prescriptions, while 87(17%) had no antibiotic prescriptions. About 395(77%) prescriptions contained injectable drugs while 118(23%) did not contain any injectable drug.
Conclusion: The average of number drugs per prescription and the proportions of antibiotics and injectables prescriptions in this study were higher than the WHO recommendations. These values were equally higher than values in many studies. Healthcare workers at the basic health clinics did more diagnosis-based prescriptions, prescribed more antibiotics and more injectable than their counterparts at the comprehensive health centers.