DefinePK

Abstract

Objective: To find out the extent of use of essential medicines in the prescriptionsand the knowledge of medical practitioners about the national essentialmedicines list of Pakistan.Methodology: This paper describes two phases of a study focused on nationalessential medicines list of Pakistan. Conducted at Kuwait Teaching Hospital, Peshawar between February and March 2013, in the first phase, using purposivesampling, digital photographs of 110 prescriptions were taken and 94 legibleprescriptions were analyzed. In the second phase, in March 2014, questionnairebased semi structured interviews were conducted from 35 medical practitioners.Results: A total of 62(65.9%) prescriptions had medicines from the nationalessential medicines list of Pakistan. Out of 279 medicines prescribed in theseprescriptions, 231 (82.8%) were from that list. 23 medical practitioners wereaware of the existence of national essential medicines list of Pakistan. Medicalpractitioners reported that safety (n=20, 57.1%), efficacy (n=19, 54.3%), relevance; and cost of medicines both (n=17, 48.6%) & availability (n=10, 28.6%)were the factors that influence their selection of the prescribed medicines. Theyinformed that the undergraduate course curriculum (n=22, 62.8%), specialtytraining (n=10, 28.6%) and the literature produced by the pharmaceutical industries (n=2, 8.6%) were the knowledge sources for prescribing a medication.Conclusion: Almost one third of the prescriptions did not contain essentialmedicines. and only one forth of medical practitioners were aware of the existenceof national essential medicines list.