A SHORT TERM STUDY OF OUTPATIENT PRESCRIBING PATTERN OF DERMATOLOGICAL DRUGS IN A TERTIARY HOSPITAL IN TIRUNELVELI

Objective A short term retrospective study to identify the prevailing prescription trend of various dermatological drugs in the Out Patient Department of a Tertiary Hospital, in Tirunelveli.Materials and Methods Five hundred prescriptions of patients attending the Dermatology Out Patient Department of Tirunelveli Medical College were collected, by a short term survey between September 1st and 15th 2009 and screened with an emphasis on polypharmacy, rational use of antibiotics, antifungals, antihistamines, vitamins, topical agents other drugs. Each prescription was given a serial number and segregated according to sex, age distribution, number of drugs in a prescription, and number of drugs from Essential Drug List .Results This analysis showed that the total number of drugs prescribed in 500 prescriptions was 977. Among them 558 (57.1) were in the oral form.414 (42.37) in the topical form only 5 (0.51) were injectables. There was a preponderance of female patients (53) . Most of the patients were in the age group of 2150 yrs . The average number of drugs prescribed for each patient was 2 (76.4).Patients receiving more than 4 drugs were few(1.2). Commonly prescribed oral drugs were antihistamines (48.57) followed by antibiotics (15.4).The topical agents, commonly prescribed were silver sulfadiazine (18.1),followed by clotrimazole cream (14.8) .Out of 58 patients requiring antifungal therapy, most of them received topical antifungal therapy than systemic. Antibiotics were prescribed in the topical form in 36 patients and oral form in 86 patients. Nineteen drugs were prescribed from Essential Drug List.Conclusion Our observation in this study is that all the prescriptions were given, by using the generic names of the drugs. The average number of the drugs, prescribed in each prescription was within the acceptable range. Majority of prescriptions were in the oral and topical forms. Prescribing least number of drugs, a decreasing tendency of prescribing injections and an increasing habit of prescribing by generic names reflect a good trend in prescription writing.