title: Drug use pattern in children at a teaching hospital.
abstract: This study aimed to evaluate drug utilization in pediatric out-patient department of a tertiary care teaching hospital. The patient and drug information of 254 patients was analyzed for WHO recommended prescribing indicators. The average number of drugs per prescription was 2.31 and 45% of medicines were prescribed from National List of Essential Medicines. The use of injectibles was low (1.18%) while an antibiotic was prescribed in 29.1%. Only 5.8% medicines were prescribed by generic name. Interventions are required to improve prescribing by generic name so as to further rationalize drug use in pediatric population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy Practice, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Sector 67, SAS Nagar, Punjab; and *Department of Pediatrics,Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dimri
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tiwari
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Basu
authors.forename: V R
authors.initials: VR
authors.lastname: Parmar
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D004363:Drug Utilization; D016568:Drugs, Generic; D005260:Female; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D010044:Outpatient Clinics, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
chemical_list: D016568:Drugs, Generic