Evaluation of controlled prescriptions with a diagnosis of surgical intervention.
OBJECTIVE
Drugs subject to control (DSC) are commonly used in the preoperative, per-operative and postoperative periods. In this study, details of DSC use, that are required to be prescribed to green prescriptions (GP) or red prescriptions (RP), for a surgical diagnosis were evaluated.


METHODS
Controlled drug prescriptions (CDP) between January to December 2009 were investigated in the archives of the Istanbul Local Health Authority. 660 CDPs indicating a surgical diagnosis were retrospectively evaluated and those prescribed by surgical departments (SD)were compared to those written by internal medicine departments (ID).


RESULTS
SD physicians prescribed 72.7% of CDPs and 89.5% of prescriptions were for GP, and 10.5% were for RP. The physicians of SD were found to prescribe more RP than ID physicians. Most of the CDPs were written for women (58.8%) and mostly in private hospitals (40.9%). Among all the physicians, orthopedic surgeons prescribed these drugs the most (20.9%). Tramadol was the most common drug found in CDPs (55.5%).


CONCLUSIONS
DSCs, which have difficult prescription procedures, are used frequently in surgical interventions. The study shows that not only SD physicians, but also ID physicians prefer CDP. The study provides important clues to the usage patterns of DSCs. Recently evolving health care systems including prescriptions should use these findings obtained from the study.
Department of Pharmacology, Marmara University Faculty of Medicine, İstanbul, Turkey.
Ahmet
A
Akıcı
Department of General Surgery, Marmara University Faculty of Medicine, İstanbul, Turkey.
Mustafa Ümit
MÜ
Uğurlu
İstanbul Public Health Center, İstanbul, Turkey.
İbrahim
İ
Topçu
İstanbul Directorate of Health, İstanbul, Turkey.
Hüseyin
H
Yılmaz
Department of Pharmacology, Marmara University Faculty of Medicine, İstanbul, Turkey.
Dilek
D
Demircan
Surgical intervention; drugs subject to control; green prescriptions; red prescriptions