<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><Articles><Article><id>106</id><JournalTitle>A STUDY TO DETERMINE COMMON PRESCRIPTION ERRORS IN PSYCHIATRIC OPD OF A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL</JournalTitle><Abstract>Prescriptions are written in order to treat and protect the health of sufferers. But many times trivial or major mistakes
in these prescriptions may create confusion and even adversely affect the health and resources of patients. The study was
designed to analyze the prescriptions from psychiatry OPD in order to determine the pattern and frequency of common
prescription errors. Another aim was to find the pattern of distribution of common psychiatric illnesses in local population.
Total 918 prescriptions written between August 2014 and March 2015 were randomly selected from the OPD of psychiatry
department in a tertiary care hospital in Rajasthan. They were studied to find errors in terms of omission of information
regarding patients and drugs, practice of poly-pharmacy, supplements, fixed dose combinations and any other related error. It
was observed that 99% of prescriptions were perfectly written and error rate was just around 1% which is in the acceptable
range as per WHO (1-3%). Furthermore, most of the errors (64.3%) were trivial in nature which could be due to excessive
work load that can be corrected easily. Overuse of abbreviations, unnecessary supplements (in form of vitamins and minerals)
and practice of poly pharmacy are the fields which still require some more attention and sensitization. Practitioners are usually
following the norms of ideal prescription in Rajasthan, but they are required to curtail poly-pharmacy, excessive use of
abbreviations and supplements in the prescription orders.</Abstract><Email>alkabansal04@gmail.com</Email><articletype>Research</articletype><volume>5</volume><issue>3</issue><year>2015</year><keyword>Prescription Errors,Poly-pharmacy,Supplements</keyword><AUTHORS>Alka Bansal,Shivankan Kakkar,Neha Sharma, Z Y Khan</AUTHORS><afflication>Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, SMS Medical College, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India,Senior Demonstrator,Department of Pharmacology, SMS Medical College, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India,Senior Demonstrator, Department of Pharmacology, SMS Medical College, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India,Professor, Department of Pharmacology, NIMS Medical College, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India.</afflication></Article></Articles>