Objective: To determine the drug use patterns and descriptive analysis of prescriptions among patients who visited doctors in Arabil City.
Methods: A retrospective study was carried out on 2000 randomly selected prescriptions from all registered prescriptions in Ardabil City using data from two insurance organizations. Data were obtained on demographics, prescribing indicators and potentially inappropriate medications. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistical methods using SPSS software.
Results: From all prescriptions, 822 (41 %) were for men and 1178 (59%) were for women. The mean age of the subjects was 31.6 ± 21.3 years ranging from 1 to 91. On thousand three hundred and six (65.3%) of all prescriptions were from general practitioners and others from specialists. The mean number of drugs per prescription was 3.58±1.3 ranging from 1 to 9. Dexamethasone, with 219 (24.7 %) prescriptions, was the most commonly prescribed medication. The total number of medications prescribed in all the prescriptions was 7158 while the mean number of medications per encounter was 3.6. Antibiotics, with 52.8% of the prescriptions, were the most prescribed drug group.
Conclusion: The results showed that the mean of prescription drugs per encounter and the rate of prescription injection drugs were more than the global standards. Also, the pattern of prescription drugs was inappropriate. It is necessary to reduce irrational prescription of drugs to patients by monitoring and control indicators of medical doctors who prescribe higher numbers of prescriptions.