Economical Impacts of Prescribing Medicines

Economical Impacts of Prescribing Medicines

Introduction

Inappropriate medicine prescribing is a global problem. Misuse of pharmaceuticals happen in all countries. The irrational practices are particularly widespread and exorbitant in developing countries. Such practices encompass; polypharmacy, the use of wrong or ineffective pharmaceuticals, underuse or incorrect use of effective pharmaceuticals, use of blend goods which are often more exorbitant and offer no benefit over lone compounds and common overuse of antimicrobials and injections. Irrational medicine use leads to reduction in the quality of drug therapy, wastage of resources, increased treatment cost, increased risk for adverse drug reactions, and emergence of drug resistance. (Bond 1999:100)

Economical Medicine Impacts in Developing Countries

Rational Use of medicine requires that patients acquire medications appropriate to their clinical needs, in doses that meet their own requirements, for an adequate period of time, and at lowest cost to them and their community, as defined by World Health Organization (WHO) conference at Nairobi 1985. (Gray 2008:10) In a low and middle income country like Nepal, large percentages of the community have restricted access to medicines due to poor accessibility and patients being incapable to pay for their prescriptions and not able to purchase medicines. Nearly 42% of the health budget is spent on medicines and international donors spend another three times, 80% of medicinal products are imported to Nepal however, the availability of medicines in the health posts and clinics are sporadic resulting into the prevalence of inappropriate medicine use. The other issues that complicate the appropriate medicine use are remote rural population not accessible to health facilities, and widespread poverty and illiteracy. (Donyai P,2008,80) Although, research has been undertaken on medicine prices, so far there has been insufficient progress in improving medicine affordability and availability for individual patients in many countries. Medicine utilization studies have been done ever since the existence of pharmacy profession. Pharmacy learning always stress the following '3Rs' i.e. right pharmaceutical, right dose and right time and pledge to decrease the preventable drug associated morbidity. (Donn 2008:12)

Medicine utilization studies should be done periodically in terms of prescribing and dispensing and also to evaluate the patients understanding of medicine usage. Hence, to give continuation to the effort of promoting medicine, we made an attempt to carry out this study with an objective of evaluating the medicine dispensing practices and patients' knowledge on drug use among the medical outpatients and to identify and analyze the problems in drug prescribing and dispensing(Cohen 2000:A1)

Economical Medicine Impacts in Developed Countries

The leverage of pharmacists on prescribing practices can be seen every day in any conceivable perform situation. No wellbeing expert is infallible, and the advantages of a kind of clinical pharmacist interventions have been documented. Some interventions or influences that may seem simple and mundane in advanced health systems such as those in Europe, the United States, or Australia (e.g., medication counseling or taking an admission drug history) may produce a major improvement in a developing nation. Indeed, pharmacists should aim on the diseases where they can have the utmost influence ...