Abstract
Abstract:
Aim:
To analyze and compare the prescribing habits of Medical officers from Public sector (PHCs) and General Practitioners from private sector

Material and methods:
Total of 200 prescriptions issued by General Practitioners holding MBBS degree, were collected. Out of this 100 prescriptions were collected from Private General Practitioners and another 100 from Medical Officers serving in Primary Health Centers. Prescription were analyzed as per age, sex, diagnosis mentioned or not, number of drugs prescribed per prescription, rationality score, rationality status of prescriptions and number of drug showing use of unnecessary drugs, injections, irrational drug or combinations.

Statistical analysis was done using Students unpaired ‘t’ test and Chi-square test.


Observation and results:
There was no significant association found between public sector and private sector in analysis of criteria -age, sex, diagnosis mentioned or not.
Number of drugs prescribed per prescription(2.27 v/s 3.66, p<0.001), total rationality score( 25.83 v/s 20.45, p<0.05), number of rational prescription (82 v/s 42, p<0.001) and number of unnecessary drugs (46 v/s 108, p<0.05 ), injections (1 v/s 15, P<0.05), irrational drug or combination (1 v/s 22, p<0.05)were noted from both the sectors.

Conclusion:
Public sector General Practitioners are more rational in their practice as compared to General Practitioners from private sector. There is acute need to develop Standard treatment guidelines for General Practitioners (Family Physicians). These guidelines should be made available to them and they should be encouraged to use the same.

Key words: Prescription audit, Rational drug therapy, General Practitioner