Rational Use and Prescribing Pattern of Drugs in Primary Health Care Centers

Background: The World health organization approximates that >50% of all medications are incorrectly prescribed, distributed, or sold. In Iraq, several serious issues and challenges arise in this matter, including minimal professional categorization of drug prescription, inept patient counseling, and finally high proportion of remedies being misused.Objective: This study aims to measure the performance of the primary health care centers regarding the use of medications and if they match what is proposed by the WHO drug use indicators and their prescribing patterns.Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted on prescriptions from 1st of January to last of December 2019 in 20 PHCCs in Baghdad, Iraq. A sample of 1200 prescriptions that met the inclusion criteria were included in this study. Data collection was done by prescriptions review and prescribing indicators were measured in a special form.Results: Drug rate per prescription was 2.33 items, ABs were prescribed in 76.3% of the 1200 reviewed prescriptions, while the percentage of injections was 8.9%, prescribing was in generic names in 24.3% and 100% from EML. The main antibiotic prescribed was amoxicillin. and injectable diclofenac for adult age group.Conclusions: Prescribing indicators were below optimal (polypharmacy, Abs percentage and generic name) except for encounters with injections prescribed and prescribing from EML.Keywords: Prescription, Pattern of Drugs, Primary Health Care, Baghdad