ABSTRACT.
Prevention of irrational use of medicines may reduce healthcare costs and potentially save I ives. In line with World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation, a retrospective, cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out to obtain information on prescribing in the general outpatient department of Kampala International University Teaching Hospital in Ishaka-Bushenyi, Uganda. A sample of 884 prescriptions was selected by systematic random sampling using an interval of 27 from 24,647 prescriptions available in the medical records of General Out-patient Department (GOPD) of Kampala International University Teaching Hospital (KIUTH) from April, 2016 to May, 2017 to assess for conformity with the prescribing indicators. The results showed that the percentage ofrecording of diagnosis was 90.72% (index of diagnosis-0.91). The average number of drugs per encounter was 2.6 (index of non-polypharmacy-0.77), and the percentage of drugs prescribed with generic name was 90.21 % (index of generics-0.9). Percentages of encounters with antibiotics and injectable drugs prescribed were 61.88% (index of antibiotics-0.48) and 5.43% (index of injectable drugs-I) respectively. Only 78.96% (index of Essential Drugs List0.79) of the medicines prescribed were from the Essential Medicines Supplies List of Uganda (EMS LU) or Uganda Clinical Guidelines 2016.The index ofrational drug prescribing was found to be 4.85.The findings showed that the prescribing indicators did not meet WHO standard criteria with exception of the percentage of encounters with injectable drugs. Over all, the index of rational drug prescribing (IRDP) was very poor. The data obtained from this study can be used to design interventions to achieve rational prescribing in this health facility i.e. continuous sensitization trainings and workshops for all prescribers and pharmacists at KIUTH, establish a drug and therapeutics committee if absent or put it to use incase present and avail standard treatment guidelines at every prescriber's station.