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Evaluation of trends of drug-prescribing patterns based on WHO prescribing indicators at outpatient departments of four hospitals in southern Ethiopia

Overview of attention for article published in Drug Design, Development and Therapy, August 2015
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143 Mendeley
Title
Evaluation of trends of drug-prescribing patterns based on WHO prescribing indicators at outpatient departments of four hospitals in southern Ethiopia
Published in
Drug Design, Development and Therapy, August 2015
DOI 10.2147/dddt.s83588
Pubmed ID
Authors

Temesgen Sidamo Summoro, Kassa Daka Gidebo, Zewde Zemma Kanche, Eskinder Wolka Woticha

Abstract

Rational prescribing is a primary step to ensure rational drug use. Often, half of the medicines are prescribed irrationally and half of these are even used incorrectly as the patients fail to take their medicines appropriately. The aim of this research was to evaluate drug-prescribing patterns of four hospitals in southern Ethiopia. A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted between May 15 and June 25, 2014, to evaluate the drug-prescribing patterns based on the World health Organization (WHO) prescribing indicators. The prescription papers, kept for the last 1 year in the outpatient departments of the four hospitals, were analyzed according to WHO guidelines. Also, prescriptions in the hospitals were analyzed to determine the most frequently prescribed drugs. All the statistical calculations were performed using SPSS(®) version 20.0 software. The average number of drugs per prescription ranges from 1.82±0.90 to 2.28±0.90, whereas the percentage of use of antibiotics and injections ranged from 46.7 to 85 and 15 to 61.7, respectively. The average percentages of drugs prescribed by generic name and from the essential drugs list were 95.8 and 94.1, respectively. Anti-infective and analgesic drugs are found to be the most frequently prescribed medicines. In terms of polypharmacy, there was a slight deviation in prescribing patterns from what is acceptable according to the WHO criteria. Prescribing by generic name and from essential drug list was almost optimal. There was a significant deviation in the use of injectables in two of the four hospitals (50%), whereas their use in the other two hospitals was within the acceptable range. The use of antibiotics in all the hospitals in present study was higher than the acceptable range. Generally, it seems that there is need for improvement of the prescribing patterns in the hospitals, although this should be consolidated with further studies to link the patient diagnosis and the prescribed medications.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 143 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 143 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 34 24%
Student > Bachelor 18 13%
Student > Postgraduate 12 8%
Researcher 10 7%
Student > Ph. D. Student 9 6%
Other 22 15%
Unknown 38 27%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 47 33%
Medicine and Dentistry 25 17%
Nursing and Health Professions 18 13%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 2 1%
Mathematics 1 <1%
Other 6 4%
Unknown 44 31%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 10 September 2015.
All research outputs
#17,286,379
of 25,374,647 outputs
Outputs from Drug Design, Development and Therapy
#1,105
of 2,268 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#165,173
of 276,425 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Drug Design, Development and Therapy
#76
of 151 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,374,647 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 21st percentile – i.e., 21% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,268 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.1. This one is in the 42nd percentile – i.e., 42% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 276,425 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 31st percentile – i.e., 31% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 151 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 42nd percentile – i.e., 42% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.