title: [Evaluation of quality medication prescription of a teaching hospital].
abstract: The errors from doctor prescriptions can cause damage to the patient's health, consequently it is necessary to identify and to prevent them. This work aimed to evaluate if the legal and institutional aspects that are present in doctor prescription at the public and university pediatric hospital to make a diagnosis from the situation, and then to correct the problems. A survey was made was made using a cross-sectional method, where copies of 1,590 prescriptions were studied after the University Committee of Research approved the survey. The average was 4.47 drugs per prescription and following data were detectable: readable--32.39% of the prescriptions were unreadable, 49.81% presented only the commercial name, 5.25% of the drugs were not standardized. Quality of prescription in the chosen hospital needs to be better to avoid medication errors and the health care process gets safer. When prescription is unreadable, they can confuse health professionals and damage patients.
authors.affiliation: Hospital de Pediatria Prof. Heriberto Ferreira Bezerra, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN 59012-170. patbrito@ufrnet.br
authors.forename: Patrícia Taveira de Brito
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Araújo
authors.forename: Severina Alice Costa
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Uchôa
mesh_terms: D001938:Brazil; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000592:standards*; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching / Q000592:standards; D011786:Quality Control