Assessment of the Prescribing Knowledge, Attitude and Skills of Medical Students and Interns in a Large Teaching Hospital of Southern India

There is a world wide concern among health authorities regarding the lack of safe and rational prescribing skills and knowledge among the new medical graduates. This study was undertaken to assess the undergraduate medical students’ and interns’ attitude and knowledge regarding safe prescribing and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biomedical & pharmacology journal 2013-06, Vol.6 (1), p.63-69
Main Authors: Khan, A.K. Afzal, Rashed, Mohammed Rafiuddin, Muneersha, T.K. Mohammed, Rahiman, O.M. Fasalu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antibiotics
Attitudes
Common cold
Curricula
Data processing
Drug therapy
Fever
Health education
Hospitals
Internships
Knowledge
Medical errors
Medical students
Pharmacology
Physicians
Qualitative research
Questionnaires
Response rates
Statistical analysis
Student writing
Studies
Teaching
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Summary:There is a world wide concern among health authorities regarding the lack of safe and rational prescribing skills and knowledge among the new medical graduates. This study was undertaken to assess the undergraduate medical students’ and interns’ attitude and knowledge regarding safe prescribing and to examine their prescribing skills. Fresh interns, 130 in number who had recently graduated and 148 medical undergraduate students were asked to complete an anonymous, selfadministered, structured questionnaire about safe prescribing. As a part of the questionnaire they were also supposed to write a prescription for a patient suffering from common cold and fever. The data so obtained was analysed using simple descriptive statistics. Where relevant Chi-square test was used to determine any significant difference. On final analysis safety and efficacy of a drug were considered to be most important factors deserving consideration. Non official drug formularies (CIMS, IDR and Drug Index) were the most preferred source of information for 88 (75%) interns, while 46 (40%) students preferred textbooks and scientific journals. The average number of medications prescribed per prescription by the students and interns were 2.11 and 2.44 respectively. Antibiotics were unnecessarily prescribed by a large number of students [48(41.73%) versus 13(11.60%) p
ISSN:0974-6242
2456-2610
DOI:10.13005/bpj/385