Drug Utilization Study in Bingham University Teaching Hospital

Abstract

Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined drug utilization research as the marketing, distribution, prescription, and use of drugs in a society, with special emphasis on the resulting medical, social, and economic consequences. Aim: The present study evaluates the utilization pattern of therapeutic agents in this health care delivery system. Methods: Four hundred and seventeen medical records were assessed; age, sex, clinical conditions, drug prescribed and duration of therapy were used to gather primary data. Results: Analysis showed that 77.7% of the patients were females while 22.3% were males and most of them (44.1%) were within the age groups of 20-29yrs. The most clinical diagnosis was gynecological disease (58.1%). There are 2127 drugs in 417 prescriptions, month of March had the highest prescriptions, other drugs (58.0%) were the most commonly prescribed drugs for other systems and they also had the highest prescribing prevalence with majority of these drugs being antianaemic (15.2%). 56.7% of the drugs were prescribed in generic names and 45.8% were orally administered. Conclusion: The present study will serve as a basis for the planning program of education and information for health care practitioners.