Prescription audit of psychiatry department at a tertiary care hospital in South India using the World Health Organization recommendations – A cross sectional study

Abstract

This study mainly highlights the importance of regular prescription auditing which helps to improve the overall quality of the prescription writing pattern and as well paves a better path to the upliftment of the healthcare system. The aim of this study was to assess the prescription pattern and drug-drug interactions of Psychiatric drugs in prescription in a tertiary care hospital. Prescription auditing of Psychiatric prescriptions was carried out using the World Health Organization Recommendations and Drug-drug interaction (DDI) was performed using a drug interaction checker software. A total of 600 psychiatric prescriptions were collected, and the data were presented in the form of descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, and mean ± standard deviation. Analysis of the data revealed that the average number of drugs per encounter was 4.2 ± 2.5. All the drugs were prescribed from the essential drug, and 594 (99%) of the prescriptions were prescribed with the generic name. Dizziness followed by irregular heart rhythm or QT prolongation are the encountered DDIs that were present in 85 (14%) and 19 (3%) prescriptions respectively. The cause of the above DDI was seen in the drug combinations such as Lorazepam + Haloperidol + Trihexyphenidyl, Lorazepam + Risperidone, and Venlafaxine + Olanzapine, Lithium + Quetiapine respectively. This study has fulfilled the majority of WHO recommendations except for writing in capital letters and also brings out the common drug interaction that happens with psychiatric medications and the reasoning behind them.