physicians' commitment to principles of prescription writing for outpatients insured by medical services insurance organization in kashan

introduction: since prescription is a way of communication between the pharmacist, physician and patient, inattention to its principles may result in mis-consumption or incomplete use of the medicine, drug interactions, and increased probable adverse effects. therefore, this research tried to investigate physicians' commitment to principles of prescription writing for outpatients insured by medical services insurance organization in kashan. methods: this cross-sectional descriptive study was performed on prescriptions of 1500 outpatient insured by medical services insurance organization in kashan during 2007. the patients were selected by systematic random sampling. data regarding legibility, pharmaceutical form, directions for consumption, physician and patient's identity were collected from the prescriptions. the data was then registered in a checklist prepared based on the world health organization (who) guidelines. by scoring the prescriptions between 0-21 they were divided into five categories of very weak, weak, moderate, good, and very good. finally, the data was analyzed by descriptive statistics. results: the prescriptions included 5245 drugs, 4661 (88.86%) of which were legible. pharmaceutical form and directions for use were mentioned for 3807 (72.58%) and 2750 (52.44%) of the prescribed drugs, respectively. the average score of commitment to principles of prescription writing was determined as good (15.01). moreover, dermatologists scored the lowest (12.18) and psychiatrists the highest (16.29). conclusion: although physicians are acceptably committed to principles of prescription writing, they may need to pay more attention to recording directions for use. therefore, employing prescription computer software packages in physicians' offices, preparing new forms with specific places to make sure all necessary information is cited, including more units regarding practical prescription writing in the curriculum of medical students, and persistent retraining for physicians are suggested.