Study on Drug Use Pattern in Dermatology Out-Patient Department: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Abstract

Now-a-days, all over the world, skin disease are the fourth most common cause of disability. A significant amount of patient attending the dermatology outdoor of any major hospital in a daily basis. Irrational drug prescribing is a common contemplation in clinical practice. The present research work was commenced to study the drug use pattern and rationality of prescriptions of the patients be at Dermatology Out-Patient Department (OPD) of a tertiary care hospital. It was an observational, single center study, conducted among 600 patients attending the Dermatology OPD of Enam Medical College and Hospital (EMCH), Bangladesh for a period of six months by interviewing the patients and detailed were filled in predesigned form. Overall 600 drug instructions were collected and surveyed for demographic as well as dermatological profile. Antihistamine (16.95%), antibacterial (14.69%), antifungal (10.73%) and corticosteroids (8.47%) were the most recurrent class of drugs ordered. Combination form (oral + topical) was mostly instructed (61.80%). Polypharmacy was seen (3.54 drugs per prescription) in our study, very few drugs (1.97%) name were written by generic name. antihistamine were most frequently advised drug groups. Least amount of drugs was prescribed from Essential Drug List (EDL) of Bangladesh. Interim auditing is necessary to promote standard prescription.