Maryam Tahir, Muhammad Irfan.
National Essential Medicine List Of Pakistan: Use In Prescriptions And Awareness In Medical Practitioners.
J Postgrad Med Inst Jan ;31(3):292-4.

Objective: To find out the extent of use of essential medicines in the prescriptions and the knowledge of medical practitioners about the national essential medicines list of Pakistan. Methodology: This paper describes two phases of a study focused on national essential medicines list of Pakistan. Conducted at Kuwait Teaching Hospital, Peshawar between February and March 2013, in the first phase, using purposive sampling, digital photographs of 110 prescriptions were taken and 94 legible prescriptions were analyzed. In the second phase, in March 2014, questionnaire based semi structured interviews were conducted from 35 medical practitioners. Results: A total of 62(65.9%) prescriptions had medicines from the national essential medicines list of Pakistan. Out of 279 medicines prescribed in these prescriptions, 231 (82.8%) were from that list. 23 medical practitioners were aware of the existence of national essential medicines list of Pakistan. Medical practitioners reported that safety (n=20, 57.1%), efficacy (n=19, 54.3%), relevance; and cost of medicines both (n=17, 48.6%) & availability (n=10, 28.6%) were the factors that influence their selection of the prescribed medicines. They informed that the undergraduate course curriculum (n=22, 62.8%), specialty training (n=10, 28.6%) and the literature produced by the pharmaceutical industries (n=2, 8.6%) were the knowledge sources for prescribing a medication. Conclusion: Almost one third of the prescriptions did not contain essential medicines. and only one forth of medical practitioners were aware of the existence of national essential medicines list.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com