Lack of Essential Competencies in Prescribing among the Health Care Providers due to Absence of Proper Integration during Undergraduate Medical School Training

The objective of the study to assess the incidence of the prescription errors done by the medical practitioners and to grade its severity as per NCC MERP criteria and their compliance with the WHO core drug prescribing guidelines. The study focuses on the feedback by the doctorsrelated to the prescription errors and the reasons for the same.

A multicenter, cross-sectional study was conducted in Out-patient departments of several hospitals in Hyderabad wherein 360 prescriptions were randomly selected and assessed for prescription errors. A self assessment form for the overall prescription skills was given to the medical practitioners along with the feedback from for improvement of the same.

Evaluation of the prescriptions had shown that almost all the prescriptions did not comply with the set WHO core drug indicators and majority of the prescriptions landed under the category of clinically insignificant errors of the NCC MERP criteria.The feedback from the doctors laid emphasis on the integration of the pharmacology with the clinical medicine during the internship.

The study focuses the significant lack in the prescribing competencies amongst the medical practitioners and noncompliance with the WHO Set guidelines for core drug prescribing. The study emphasizes on the need of the medical education department to focus on the same for the prevention of the significant errors and help in reducing the disease burden on the society.