Assessment of prescribing practices among urban and rural general practitioners in Tamil Nadu
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Studying drug use pattern among medical practitioners is of vital importance in the present scenario where irrational drug use and development of drug resistance is becoming rampant. OBJECTIVE: To assess, the pattern of prescribing practices among the general practitioners in a defined rural and urban area of Tamil Nadu. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A community based descriptive study was conducted to collect 600 prescriptions from the catchment areas of rural and urban health training centers of a medical college using prescribing indicators as per the WHO "How to investigate drug use in health facilities" tool. RESULTS: This prescription study revealed that multivitamins (19.5%), antibiotics (19.3%), drugs for gastro-intestinal tract (GIT) (18%), analgesic non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs/ (NSAID's) (15.1%), and antihistaminic (12.5%) were prescribed frequently. Among the antibiotics, amoxicillin (49.2%) was the most commonly prescribed followed by gentamicin (31.7%). Percentage of prescriptions with an antibiotic was 55% and nearly 62% of the practitioners prescribed drugs by their generic names. As a practice of poly-pharmacy, it was observed that the average number of drugs prescribed in urban and rural area was nearly 5 and 4, respectively. Nearly 80% of the urban and rural practitioners were prescribing at least one injection. Study of the quality of prescriptions revealed that there was poor legibility, high usage of abbreviations, inadequate details of the drugs, and absence of signature by practitioners in the prescriptions. CONCLUSION: This study clearly highlights the practice of poly-pharmacy, low usage of generic drugs, injudicious usage of antibiotics and injections and low usage of drugs prescribed from essential drugs list.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
A similar study highlights polypharmacy, low usage of generic drugs, injudicious usage of antibiotics and injections, and low usage of drugs from essential drugs list in other parts of this region in India.
“A similar study highlights the practice of poly-pharmacy, low usage of generic drugs, injudicious usage of antibiotics and injections and low usage of drugs from essential drugs list in other parts of this region in India [13].”
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Field tests for rational drug use in twelve developing countries
Hogerzeil, H. V., Bimo, Ross-Degnan, D., Laing, R. O., Ofori-Adjei, D., Santoso, B., Azad Chowdhury, A. K., Das, A. M., Kafle, K. K., Mabadeje, A. F. B., et al. (1993) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/0140-6736(93)92760-q · Cited by 328 · see citing works
The WHO policy package to combat antimicrobial resistance
Leung, E., Weil, D. E. C., Raviglione, M. C., & Nakatani, H. (2011) · Bulletin of the World Health Organization · doi:10.2471/blt.11.088435 · Cited by 320 · see citing works
Ten recommendations to improve use of medicines in developing countries
Laing, R. O. (2001) · Health Policy and Planning · doi:10.1093/heapol/16.1.13 · Cited by 316 · see citing works
Irrational drug use in India: a prescription survey from Goa.
(2005) · PubMed · Cited by 128 · see citing works
Pattern of prescribing practices in the Madhya Pradesh, India.
Bhartiy, S. S., Shinde, M., Nandeshwar, S., et al. (2008) · PubMed · Cited by 85 · see citing works
Prescribing practices of rural primary health care physicians in Uzbekistan
Pavin, M., Nurgozhin, T. S., Hafner, G., Yusufy, F., & Laing, R. O. (2003) · Tropical Medicine & International Health · doi:10.1046/j.1365-3156.2003.00992.x · Cited by 70 · see citing works
S, K. I. K., Chandy, S., Jeyaseelan, L., et al. (2008) · PubMed · Cited by 70 · see citing works
General practitioner prescribing patterns in Babol city, Islamic Republic of Iran
Moghadamnia, A. A., Mirbolooki, M., & Aghili, M. B. (2002) · Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal · doi:10.26719/2002.8.4-5.550 · Cited by 65 · see citing works
Chowdhury, A. A., Roy, T., Faroque, A., Bachar, S. C., Asaduzzaman, M., Nasrin, N., Akter, N., Gazi, H. R., Kabir, A. K. L., Parvin, M., et al. (2011) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/1471-2458-11-779 · Cited by 59 · see citing works
Prescription audit of outpatient attendees of secondary level government hospitals in Maharashtra
Potharaju, H., & Kabra, S. (2011) · Indian Journal of Pharmacology · doi:10.4103/0253-7613.77350 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
Sivagnanam, G., Thirumalaikolundusubramanian, P., Mohanasundaram, J., et al. (2004) · PubMed · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Evaluation of drug use in Jordan using WHO patient care and health facility indicators
Otoom, S. A.-A., Batieha, A. M., Hadidi, H., Hasan, M., & Saudi, K. A. (2002) · Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal · doi:10.26719/2002.8.4-5.544 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
Rational use of drugs: prescribing and dispensing practices at public health facilities in Lao PDR
Keohavong, B., Syhakhang, L., Sengaloundeth, S., et al. (2006) · Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety · doi:10.1002/pds.1169 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Antimicrobial drug use in a small Indian community hospital
Blomberg, M., Jensen, M. B., Henry, A., et al. (2010) · Tropical Doctor · doi:10.1258/td.2010.090157 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
(2000) · PubMed · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Mashalla, Y., Maselle, A. Y., Kayombo, E. J., et al. (2011) · Tanzania journal of health research/Tanzania Journal of Health Research · doi:10.4314/thrb.v13i1.63093 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Advantages and disadvantages of an essential drugs programme.
Lm, L. (1996) · PubMed · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- [1]Declaration of Alma-Ata International Conference on Primary Health Care, Alma-Ata, USSR, 6-12 September 1978 Last cited 2011 Aug 26 Available from: http://www.who.int/hpr/NPH/docs/declaration_almaata.pdf
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Farooqui, H. H., Selvaraj, S., Mehta, A., & Heymann, D. L. (2018) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0204805 · Cited by 96 · see citing works
Aravamuthan, A., Arputhavanan, M., Subramaniam, K., & Udaya Chander J, S. J. (2017) · Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice · doi:10.1186/s40545-016-0074-6 · Cited by 81 · see citing works
Farooqui, H. H., Mehta, A., & Selvaraj, S. (2019) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0224848 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Priyadharsini, R. P., Ramasamy, K., & Amarendar, S. (2022) · Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care · doi:10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_527_21 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Drug utilization studies using WHO prescribing indicators from India: A systematic review
Gujar, A., Gulecha, D. V., & Zalte, D. A. (2021) · Health Policy and Technology · doi:10.1016/j.hlpt.2021.100547 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
- Authors
- Ganeshkumar, P., Gopalakrishnan, S., & Katta, A.
- Affiliations
- SRM Institute of Science and Technology (IN)
- Corresponding author
- Ganeshkumar, Parasuraman
- Venue
- Indian Journal of Pharmacology
- Published
- 2013
- Volume
- 45
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 252
- ISSN
- 0253-7613 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3696296
- OpenAlex
- W2084261059
- Cited by
- 53
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 3.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-sa
- Locations
- Indian Journal of Pharmacology (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology › Antibiotic Use and Resistance
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Geriatrics and Gerontology › Pharmaceutical Practices and Patient Outcomes
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy
- Keywords
- prescribing patterns, general practitioners, urban-rural differences, irrational drug use, antibiotic prescribing, polypharmacy, generic drug names, prescribing quality, injection use, essential medicines list, WHO prescribing indicators, Tamil Nadu
- MeSH terms
- Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal, Anti-Bacterial Agents, Drug Utilization, Gastrointestinal Agents, Histamine Antagonists, Humans, India, Practice Patterns, Physicians', Drug Prescriptions, Rural Population, Urban Population, Vitamins, General Practitioners
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
