Assessment of Relevant Information from the Prescriptions Dispensed in the Various Community Pharmacies in Calicut

Study investigated the current prescription writing practices and determined the presence of relevant clinical information in the prescriptions dispensed in the various community pharmacies in Calicut using a descriptive observational method. Legibility and completeness of prescription, prescription writing practices were assessed as per WHO guidelines of prescription completeness assessment and grading scale. Three dimensions studied for the completeness of prescription were physician information, patient informations and medication informations. A total of 158 prescriptions were collected and physician informations completeness domain assessment found that 5.7% of prescriptions lacked physician?s name, 2.54% missed address and 5.07% did not have physician?s signature. On assessing patient information domain, it was found that patient?s weight and address were not present on 95.57% and 85.44% of prescriptions respectively. Date of writing of prescriptions was not mentioned in 3.17% cases. Assessment of medication information domain found that prescribers gave preference to the trade names (97.47%.) On assessing legibility it was found that most of the prescriptions were legible (66%). These findings have shown the need of clinical pharmacy monitoring in community pharmacy area to improve the prescription writing habits use and to give input to the healthcare to minimize the chance of errors.