Evaluation of outpatient paediatric drug prescriptions in a teaching hospital in Nigeria for rational prescribing

Abstract

The prescriptions of children aged < 12 years who had attended the paediatric outpatient clinic between January and May 2006 were studied retrospectively. A total of 1944 prescriptions were analysed after excluding those that were illegible. 7146 drugs were prescribed and the numbers of drugs prescribed per patient per visit were between 1 and 8 with a mean value of 3.7. Injections were prescribed for 349 (18.0%) patients and artemether 144 (41.3%) was the most frequently prescribed injection.