Prescription writing skills of preclinical medical and dental students in a medical college

Abstract

Introduction: Prescription is a clinician’s written order to dispense drugs. Prescription writing is one of the basic competencies to be learned by medical and dental students, who are more prone to make prescription errors during the early stages of their training.

Methods: It was a cross sectional study conducted in NMCTH, Jorpati, Kathmandu. Medical and dental students in the first and second year were included in the study. Students were given common clinical conditions to write prescriptions. Prescriptions were analyzed for physician and drug related components.

Results: The total number of medical and dental students that participated in this study was 326. The percentage of different physician related components in the prescriptions of first year medical students ranged from 61.4 to 100%, from 74.1 to 100% in second year medical students, from 55 to 100% in first year dental students and from 66.7 to 100% in second year dental students. The percentage of different drug related components of prescriptions was from 73.7% to 90% in first year medical students, from 79.3 to 94.8% in second year medical students, from 57.5 to 80% in first year dental students and from 74.1 to 92.6% in second year dental students.

Conclusion: Prescription writing skills of preclinical medical and dental students are lacking in its various components. Evaluation of their prescription writing skill should be done frequently to find out the deficiencies which must be corrected by better training to reduce prescription errors and to increase adherence to improve rational prescribing.