Prescribing Pattern for Skin Diseases in Dermatology OPD at Borumeda Hospital, North East, Ethiopia

Introduction: Skin diseases are the major contributors of disease burden in society. Dermatological therapy ultimate goal is achieved by administering the safest and least number of drugs. The problem gets compounded with the inappropriate and irrational use of medicines. Therefore, periodic prescription audit in the form of prescribing patterns is away to improve irrational prescription. The objective of this study to assess the prescription patterns of dermatological agents in Borumeda hospital. Method: Hospital based retrospective cross sectional study in which prescribing patterns of dermatological agents are assessed. A total of 385 samples of patient record prescription from November/1/2016 to December/30/2016, and the sample were selected by systematic random sampling technique. Sample prescriptions were reviewed using structural data collection format. The Collected data was analyzed by using SPSS version 20. Result: Regarding rout of administration, the maximum number of drugs was prescribed topically (66.2%). Topical steroids were the most commonly prescribed drugs (25.3%). Use of generic prescribing in single drug prescribing was 81.7%. The prevalence of atopic dermatitis was higher (26.3%, 20.8%) in both male and female respectively followed by scabies in male with 12.2% and Acne vulgaris (12.9%) in female. Number of drugs per prescription was higher (2.46) than WHO standard (<2). Conclusion: The current study reveals that topical corticosteroids were commonly prescribed drugs in the dermatology unit and the prescribing practice imitates incidence of polypharmacy.