Publication:

Study on assessment of awareness about concepts in undergraduate pharmacology curriculum among clinicians in a tertiary care teaching hospital

Background Rational prescribing forms the corner stone of successful implementation of rational drug use. To boost the cause of rational use of Medicine, the P-drug concept was given in late nineties. The idea was to make Physicians familiar with few personal drugs chosen from National Essential drug list based on efficacy, safety, suitability and cost. The present study was conducted to assess the awareness of clinicians about basic pharmacological concepts.

Methods It is a cross sectional study with a study population of 100, conducted in RRMCH for a period of one month. It is a questionnaire based study involving clinicians and post graduates working in this hospital. Descriptive statistical analysis has been carried out in the present study.

Results In our study, 38% of physicians were aware of the term Essential drugs and 26% of doctors prescribed drugs from National Essential drug list. 56% of respondents were aware of term rational drug use but only 1/3 of them were aware of adverse effects, drug interactions of the drugs they prescribed. Majority of physicians (85%) used standard text book as the source of drug information.

Conclusions Lack of knowledge among physicians about new concepts like p-drug, rational drug use and essential drugs points towards need for having more CMEs on basic pharmacological concepts.