Prescription Quality Index Based Analysis of Prescriptions of Outdoor Patients in a Tertiary Care Centre in Haryana

ABSTRACT

Writing a prescription is a combination of science and art. Good quality prescriptions are a sign of prescriber’sexpertise. Analysis of quality of prescriptions can be carried out by various methods and by using certain toolsas well. Prescription Quality Index (PQI) is one such validated tool for analyzing the prescription quality. Thepresent study was undertaken on 2155 prescriptions to analyse the prescriptions of outdoor patients by usingPrescription Quality Index tool. Each prescription was evaluated by using questionnaire of PQI tool. The toolconsists of 22 questions, based on the answers of which a score was calculated for each prescription. Thena collective mean score for all the prescriptions was calculated. Depending upon individual scores, theprescriptions were graded in to poor, medium and high-quality prescriptions. The mean PQI score for all the2155 prescriptions was 28.94 ± 0.23. We found that 1015 (46.10 %) prescriptions were of poor quality, 46(2.13 %) were of medium quality and 1094 (50.77 %) were of good quality. The overall mean score of all theprescriptions falls in to the poor-quality prescription category according to PQI. It was concluded that therewere many lacunas that require the attention of prescribers in order to attain and maintain high standardprescription quality.