OBJECTIVES To assess the legibility and completeness of handwritten prescriptions and compare with electronic prescription system for medication errors. DESIGN Prospective study. SETTING King Khalid University Hospital (KKUH), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Handwritten prescriptions were received from clinical units of Medicine Outpatient Department (MOPD), Primary Care Clinic...

 Background: As a major responsibility, health authorities must control rational prescription of drugs (RUD). A way to analyze the regional status of drug prescription is the WHO’s recommended indices. The purpose of the study was to determine the status of drug prescriptions in pharmacies of healthcare centers under the authority of Tehran University of Medical Sciences based on the WHO indice...

141 questionnaires were posted to GPs randomly selected in the Mid-West. 103 responses were received. 32 GPs (31%) strongly agreed and 65 GPs (63%) agreed that antibiotics are over used in general practice. 35 GPs (34%) felt under pressure to prescribe an antibiotic at least once a day. 41 GPs (40%) agreed that delayed prescriptions are a safe prescribing strategy. 53 GPs (51%) agreed that dela...

This excellent pamphlet is published by Dr. Thos. Stephenson, the Editor of the well known and useful periodical, The Prescriber. Incompatibility, in the medical sense, has been defined by Dr. Walter Smith of Dublin a? "any unintentional change, which notably interferes with the elegance, usefulness, or safety of a prescription," and such changes may be chemical, physical (or pharmaceutical), o...

Prescribing a regimen that provides "optimal dialysis" to patients who wish to dialyze at home is of major importance, yet there is substantial variation in how home hemodialysis (HD) is prescribed. Geographic location, patient health status and clinical goals, and patient lifestyle and preferences all influence the selection of a prescription for a particular patient-there is no single prescri...

background: as a major responsibility, health authorities must control rational prescription of drugs (rud). a way to analyze the regional status of drug prescription is the who’s recommended indices. the purpose of the study was to determine the status of drug prescriptions in pharmacies of healthcare centers under the authority of tehran university of medical sciences based on the who indices...

To the Editor: In their article, “Hypertension Control in Community Health Centers Across China: Analysis of Antihypertensive Drug Treatment Patterns,” Wang et al.1 reported baseline information on antihypertensive prescriptions from 1,000 community health centers in China from March 2007 to the end of 2010. The number of treated hypertensive patients was 92,325 out of 249,830 patients with hyp...

OBJECTIVES To assess long-term trends in the volume of ambulatory antibiotic prescriptions and prescription and consultation rates for respiratory tract infections (RTIs) in France in relation to the yearly public antibiotic campaign since 2002. METHODS Data collected on representative cohorts of office-based physicians and pharmacies in France participating in IMS Health panels between 1980 ...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether postdating delayed antibiotic prescriptions results in a further decrease (over usual delayed prescriptions) in antibiotic use. DESIGN Randomized controlled trial. SETTING A small rural town in Newfoundland and Labrador. PARTICIPANTS A total of 149 consecutive adult primary care patients who presented with acute upper respiratory tract infections. INTERVEN...

CONTEXT Interest in the role of fibrates intensified after the publication of the negative results from the Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) trial, which assessed therapy with fenofibrate plus statins. The evidence for clinical benefit in outcomes with the use of fibrates is heavily weighted on the use of the older fibrates such as gemfibrozil and clofibrate. OBJECTI...