Journal of Research in Pharmacy Practice

Comparison of prescribing indicators of academic versus nonacademic specialist physicians in Urmia, Iran

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

. Laya Sadigh-Rad 1
. Leila Majdi 2
. Mehrnush Javaezi 3
. Mohammad Delirrad 4

1 Rational Use of Drugs Committee, Vice-Chancellery for Food and Drug, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran

2 Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran

3 Department of Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Urmia, Iran

4 Department of Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran

Abstract
Objective: As chief prescribers, physicians could have a key role in rational drug use. Core 
prescribing indicators of all physicians have been evaluated in the Islamic Republic of Iran 
for several years, but no study has assessed the effects of academic status of doctors on 
their prescribing behaviors. We aimed to compare prescribing indicators of two groups of 
academic and non-academic specialist physicians working in Urmia, Iran.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, prescribing indicators of the total number of 37 
academic and 104 non-academic specialist physicians in six medical specialties (infectious 
diseases, psychiatry, otorhinolaryngology, gynecology, pediatrics and general surgery) were 
studied during 2012 using Rx‑analyzer, a dedicated computer application. A set of five quality 
indicators was used based on the World Health Organization and International Network 
for Rational Use of Drugs recommendations.
Findings: Totally, 709,771 medications in 269,660 prescriptions were studied. For academic 
and non-academic specialist physicians, the average number of medications per prescription 
was 2.26 and 2.65, respectively. Similarly, patients’ encounters with injectable pharmaceuticals 
were 17.37% and 26.76%, respectively. The corresponding figures for antimicrobial agents 
were 33.12% and 45.46%, respectively. The average costs of every prescription were 6.53 and 
3.30 United States Dollar for academic and non-academic specialist physicians, respectively. 
All the above‑mentioned differences were statistically significant.
Conclusion: Better prescribing patterns were observed in academic specialist physicians. 
However, they prescribed medications that were more expensive, while the reason was not 
investigated in this study. Further studies may reveal the exact causes of these differences.

Keywords

Drug utilization review
inappropriate prescribing
Iran
outpatients
Urmia
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Journal of Research in Pharmacy Practice
Volume 4, Issue 2
Spring 2015
Pages 45-50

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