Irrational drug use-a pilot prescription study from Calicut,Kerala

Objective：To describe the prescribing behavior of the physician in Kerala,and to describe types and number of medicine prescribed by doctors so as to rationalize the prescription writing habits of physician.Methods： A six month study was done to define the pattern of drug use in Medical college hospital,Calicut. The data and the other important aspects of study were collected by personal interview,questionnaires meant for doctors and prescription monitoring Performa for the patients issued by WHO. The findings of survey were critically analyzed. Results： The results indicated that majority of doctors prescribed on the basis of patient＇s history, patient＇s feed back report, drug availability, brand cost, quality of drug and ADRs. All the interviewed doctors looked upon the side effects. It was found that individual drugs were prescribed more than fixed dose combinations （85.6%）. Out of these 71.5% were prescribed as branded and 28.5% as generic. The demographic data, like name, age, sex, disease diagnosis were