ASSESSMENT OF INJECTION USE PRACTICES AND COMPLETENESS OF PRESCRIPTIONS: THE CASE OF AYDER REFERRAL HOSPITAL, MEKELLE, NORTHERN ETHIOPIA

Back Ground: Overuse of injections is considered as an important indicator of irrational prescribing pattern in a given health care setting owing to the invasive nature of such drug delivery system. Moreover, blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS can be transmitted through unsafe injections due to poor injection practices and injection overuse.  If the use of injections exceeds the availability of injection accessories, reuse of syringes and needles is likely. Therefore, the greater the use, the higher is the risk.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to assess injection use prevalence and completeness of information on prescriptions in Ayder Referral Hospital (ARH).

Methodology: A population based descriptive (ecological) study was conducted on prescriptions of both in- and out-patients at ARH. Of the total of 11,980, some 2880 prescriptions containing injectable drugs prescribed during the months of February and March, 2010 were reviewed.

Results: During the study period, 24% (2880) of all the prescriptions ordered were found to have consisted at least one injectable. A total of 232 different types of drugs were dispensed of which around 19% (44) were drugs administered parentally. Grossly, 4348 drugs were prescribed with in 2880 prescriptions consisting of injectables indicating the amount of drugs administered per prescription to be 1.5.  It was found that 53% (1526) females and 47% (1354) males have used injectable drugs. In the prescriptions, children <15 years 25.7% (740), adults 16-39 years 50.3% (1449) and 24% (691) of users were age 40 and above. Overall, 18.2% (8) of all the prescribed parenteral drugs were antibiotics, 27.3% (12) hormones and vitamins, 18.2% (8) infusions and the rest 36.4% (16) were other drugs with different therapeutic effects.

Conclusion: With regard to the WHO limit of injection use, ARH fails to maintain the limit. The average number of drugs per prescription and the number of different types of injectables that were prescribed from National Drug List of Ethiopia were within the range of the WHO standard. Generally, there was over use of injections and incompleteness of information on some prescriptions.