Publication:

Pharmacotherapeutic audit meetings as a tool of improving prescribing practices

Background Pharmacotherapeutic audit meeting (PTAM) is a good tool to review prescriptions for rationality and suggest measures for improving quality of prescriptions. To promote this, World Health Organization (WHO) and International Network for Rational Use of Drugs (INRUD) provided drug prescribing and drug use indicators. To assess the impact of PTAMs as an intervention for improving quality and rationality of prescriptions.

Methods This was a single centre, prospective study conducted from December 2018-February 2020. Prescriptions from outpatient surgical departments were collected, screened using WHO/INRUD core indicators and discussed in PTAMs. The same process was repeated over next 2 months to assess change in prescribing patterns after PTAM. Chi-square and Student’s t-test was used for statistical analysis.

Results The difference in proportions for antibiotic prescribing was 8.7% [95% CI (1.0%-16.7%), p=0.02]; injectable preparation use was 0.7% [95% CI (-0.4%-2.3%) p=0.23]; prescriptions with generic name drugs was 10.9% [95% CI (5.6-16.2%) p<0.0001] and prescriptions from Essential drug list (EDL) was 8.1% [95% CI (2.5%-13.5%) p=0.0046].

Conclusions Our research showed PTAM could be an effective tool to implement WHO/INRUD drug prescribing indicators robustly. Hence, it could be included in WHO/INRUD policies as an intricate part of institutional healthcare delivery system.