Role of General Practitioners in Prescribing Drugs, ORS and Zinc in the Management of Acute Watery Diarrhea for Children Under 5 Years of Age

Aim: To appraise general practitioners in the management of acute watery diarrhea for children under 5 years of age and to identify various factors contributing in the gaps of current practices of general practitioners for the case management of diarrhea. Study design: Cross-sectional analytical study Setting: Lahore city Study population: The study population comprised the General Practitioners working in the private clinics in the Lahore city. Observational units: General Practitioner working in the Private Settings of Lahore city. Sample size: 380 Sampling technique: Simple random sampling (SRS) Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 380 general practitioners (GPs) selected through simple random sampling from the list of GPs working in the private sector in Lahore city with the objective to appraise the GPs in the management of acute watery diarrhea (AWD) for children under 5 years of age and to identify various factors contributing in the gaps of current practices of general practitioners for the case management of diarrhea. Results: Of the 380 GPs working in the private sector at Lahore city, 339(89%) were males and 41(11%) were females, result showed that GPs with MBSS only prescribed 2.3±1.6 drugs /prescription whereas pediatricians with minor diploma prescribed 1.9±1.6 drugs/prescription. There was statistically significant difference between qualification of GPs, experiences as GPs, read WHO guidelines, attended course at DTU and their prescribing trend for ORS, antimicrobials, antidiarrheals while a statistically significant difference was also seen between qualification of GPs, year since graduation. Conclusion: Information Education Communication (IEC) strategies should be devised for implementation of the new diarrhea management recommendations.