Independent prescription of medicines and diagnostic test advice by final year medical students in Punjab.

Sale of medicines is not rigorously controlled in Pakistan. Therefore, medical students start prescribing drugs and advising diagnostic tests before they graduate. This cross-sectional study investigated the frequency of independent medical prescription by 180 stratified, randomly selected final year medical students from 3 public medical colleges in Punjab, Pakistan. Data were obtained by self-administered questionnaire. One hundred and twelve students had prescribed medicines independently without any supervision; 38 had performed a physical examination before prescribing; and 74 had advised and 49 interpreted diagnostic tests independently. Forty-four students had administered injectable drugs and one third of these were administered without seeing expiry dates. The most frequently prescribed drugs were nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (92%) and antibiotics (73%). The most frequently advised tests were complete blood cell count, chest X-ray and urine detailed reports. One hundred and twenty-seven participants thought that medical students should not prescribe drugs. There was a significant relationship between gender and household income and prescription practices. Many final year medical students had prescribed drugs and advised diagnostic tests before graduation.