Inappropriate
prescribing reduces the quality of medical care and leads to a
waste of resources. No study has been reported concerning rational
drug use in United Arab Emirates, UAE, recently.
Objectives: 1. assessing patterns of use and defining problems
regarding the rational drug use. 2. Setting baseline situational
analysis study for practices in the health care system relevant
to drug use.
Method: A descriptive pilot study, consisting of pharmacists,
physicians and patients (100 of each of category) from four private
hospitals, (12) medical clinics, (80) community pharmacies in
addition to 150 prescriptions. A questionnaire of three sections
was designed to include WHO indicators regarding patients, facility
and prescribing patterns that are relevant to rational drug use
was carried out in four emirates of the UAE in the period December
2008-Febreuary 2009.
Results: Consultation and dispensing times were 10 (SD=2.75) min
and 68 (SD=9.7) seconds, respectively. Average no. of drugs per
prescription was (2.9 + 0.97), % of prescriptions using generic
name (7.35%), % of antibiotic containing prescriptions (31.1%),
% of injection containing prescriptions (2.9%), adherence to Standard
Treatment Protocols (46%), adherence to the essential drug list
(64%), patient’s knowledge of correct dosage (55%), adequately
labeled drugs (45%), patient’s information (65%).
Conclusions: Several areas of deficiency in rational drug use
had been defined in the private sector through UAE that can be
remedied through adopting several strategies such as adherence
to national standard treatment guidelines and essential drug list
based on treatments of choice, interaction between health care
system and providing drugs information to consumers.
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