Prescription Writing Skill among Intern Doctors of Birat Medical College Teaching Hospital, Nepal

Abstract

Introduction: A prescription is a written order to a pharmacist by a doctor, which should contain all its components so that a patient can get precise and fruitful outcomes of disease treatment. Preclinical undergraduate medical students are taught and trained to develop good prescription skills. Thus, we aimed to appraise prescription writing skills among intern doctors of Birat Medical College Teaching Hospital, Nepal.

Methods: This observational cross-sectional study enrolled 63 interns of Birat Medical College Teaching Hospital. Nineteen components of a prescription according to the World Health Organization were included in this study. They were name, address, degree, registration number, telephone number, sign of the prescriber, date, diagnosis, dosage form, correct dose, the correct route, correct quantity, and correct instruction of the drug, name, address, sex, and age of the patient. Then four groups; Group A (Poor), Group B (Fair), Group C (Good), and Group D (Excellent) were divided according to the number of components included in the prescription.

Results: According to the study scoring system, the maximum prescriptions were from group C (65.08%) followed by group B (34.92%). None of them were group A and group D. Components such as prescriber’s name, drug’s name, dose, route, quantity, and instruction were found in all the prescriptions whereas, components such as prescriber’s address, degree, and contact number were not found in any of the prescriptions.

Conclusions: The prescription writing skills of interns of Birat Medical College Teaching Hospital is not up to the mark. There are lots of missing components in their prescriptions.