Prescribing in pregnancy can be challenging for providers facing insufficient information about drug safety, overestimation of the risk of medications by both the patient and the care provider, and increasing litigation costs. This article provides key concepts to consider when prescribing for a pregnant patient and offers practical advice for choosing the safest possible drug treatments.

The aim of this study was to analyse drug prescribing practices in primary health care centres in Bahrain. We retrospectively evaluated 600 prescriptions selected randomly from all primary health care centres in Bahrain (n = 20) in 2004. Analysis followed WHO recommended prescribing core indicators. The mean number of drugs prescribed at each encounter was 3.3 (SD 0.7). A single drug was prescr...

BACKGROUND In the region of Västra Götaland in Sweden, prescribing guidelines, drawn up by 24 expert groups and determined by the regional board for drugs, are since 2006 available in the form of an annually published booklet. This study investigates, for the first time, the use of and attitudes towards this publication. METHODS A questionnaire was administered to doctors working in primary h...

OBJECTIVES (1) To estimate the cost of irrational prescribing, and (2) to compare the effect of three different kinds of user fee on prescribing costs, in rural Nepal. METHODS A controlled before-after study was conducted in 33 government primary health care facilities in rural eastern Nepal during 1992-95. A fee per prescription (covering all drugs in whatever amounts) was regarded as the co...

OBJECTIVES The study investigated (1) the association between comorbidity and multidrug prescribing compared with the index condition, and (2) the association between vascular comorbidity and non-vascular condition key drug prescribing. DESIGN Cross-sectional study linking anonymised computer consultations with prescription records for a 2-year time period. SETTING 11 general practices in N...

Background: Irrational prescribing of drugs is a major health problem in medical practice resulting in; ineffective treatment, development of antibiotic-resistant organisms, adverse effects and economic burden on patients and society. Objectives: The main objective of this study was rationalization of prescribing drugs and the specific objectives were to; assess the family physicians' prescribi...