title: Deficiencies in medical prescriptions in a Sudanese hospital.
abstract: We determined the quality of medical prescription in Ribat University Hospital, Khartoum through detecting errors in doctors' prescriptions. We randomly selected 1000 medical prescriptions and checked them for completeness and legibility. The total number of doctors responsible for writing the prescriptions was 46. The patient's full name was written on only 18.8% of prescriptions and that of the doctor on only 6.7%. In only 19.5% of prescriptions were drugs prescribed by their generic names, 59.7% lacked the quantity of the drug, 25.7% lacked the duration of treatment and 15.8% were difficult to read. The quality of drug prescriptions written by our hospital doctors is seriously deficient.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, University of Ribat, Khartoum, Sudan.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yousif
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Abdalla
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Abdelgadir
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards; D004334:Drug Administration Schedule; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017723:Drug Utilization Review; D016568:Drugs, Generic; D006236:Handwriting; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006785:Hospitals, University; D006801:Humans; D008485:Medical Audit; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital / Q000193:education / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013397:Sudan
chemical_list: D016568:Drugs, Generic