Poor quality prescriptions, besides affecting patient safety, have a deleterious impact on the restricted purse of sick persons, especially those belonging to lower socioeconomic strata. Objective: To study the prescribing practices in outpatient departments of an apex tertiary care institute of India. Methodology: Descriptive and observational study of randomly taken sample of 300 prescriptions from pharmacy was carried out. Parameters for analysis were selected based on review of literature.

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... bservations: Of the total samples analyzed, OPD registration number, date of registration, patients name, gender and department were mentioned in 99.3% of prescriptions. Patient name was mentioned in all the prescriptions and gender was present in 99% prescriptions. Address of the patient was present in only 64.7% (194) prescriptions. 93.7% of the prescriptions were legible. Ninety-seven percent of the prescriptions carried diagnosis or presenting complaints. An average of 2.82 ± 1.77 (median -3) drugs were prescribed per patient. Only 1.63% (14) prescribed drugs were generic. In our study, antacids (26.33%) followed by the vitamins (24%), analgesics (23.3%), antibiotics (22.8%) and antipyretics (18%) were the most commonly prescribed drugs. Drug strength, drug frequency and drug administration route was mentioned in only 62, 89 and 89% of the total prescriptions. Fifty percent did not carry the duration and mean duration of prescription was 17.75 ± 24.18 days. Signature, name, designation, address, stamp and medical registration number of the physician was mentioned only in 96.7, 7.3, 6.7, 2.7, 0.7 and 0% of the prescriptions respectively. Conclusion: The study has brought out the need for sensitization and awareness programes for doctors to improve the quality of prescription-writing and periodic review of prescriptions.