Vol. 6, Issue 9 (2017)

Author(s):
Ifeyinwa Chijioke-Nwauche and Justina Akodo

Abstract:
Background: To ensure rational drug use, it is important to assess patterns of drug utilisation in health care facilities using established principles as provided by the WHO core drug use indicators. A cross sectional study was carried out in which 12,615 patients’ records from pharmacy department of the Health Centre registered with the NHIS and TISHIP insurance schemes were analysed using WHO prescribing indicators. The average number of drugs per prescription were 3.43 (range1-8) and 3.81(range1-12) drugs per encounter in NHIS and TISHIP respectively. Percentage encounter with antibiotics prescription from both insurance schemes were 9.7% and 8.5%, while 92% and 93% of drugs were prescribed with generic names. All the drugs were prescribed from the essential drug list (EDL). The most commonly prescribed medicines were multivitamins and antimalarials. The study has shown appropriate use of antibiotics but high rate of polypharmacy. Rational drug use requires continuous monitoring in health care facilities.