Assessment of Patient Knowledge Regarding Drugs Prescribed and

Dispensed in Some Health Insurance Outpatient Clinics in Alexandria

Rational prescription and use of drugs has

been a concern in both developed and

developing countries during the last two

decades and been promoted by WHO and

others.

The quality of dispensing and patient

knowledge of drugs has been overlooked,

although patient knowledge is considered as

one of the essential prerequisites for patient

compliance with treatment.

The aim of this study is to assess patients’

knowledge regarding drugs prescribed and

dispensed and to identify its determinants in

five outpatient clinics affiliated to Health

Insurance Organization in Alexandria.

This study is a part of a larger drug

utilization study, where a random sample of

30 encounters per each physician of all 62

general practitioners, internal medicine and

ENT specialists working in the selected

clinics was carried out as recommended by

WHO for studies describing current

treatment practice, so the required sample of

patients was 1860.

All interviewed patients were asked about names of

prescribed drugs, dose regimens for all prescribed

drugs, duration of treatments and reasons for

prescription. Patient reported each attribute of patient

drug knowledge on a 2 point scale that scored 0 (did not

know the attribute) or 1 (knew the attribute).

Female43.3%

Male 56.7% 20-

9.9%

30-18.3%

Less than 10 years

4.5%

10-19.5%

40-17.9%

50-15.4%

60+14.5%

Skilled worker8.6%

Clerk24.2%

Housewife13.3%

Non-skilled worker11.9%

Professional9.8%

Student24.0%

Retired8.1%

Recurrent82.7%

New17.3%

The mean patient knowledge score was 2.49.

In relation to factors independently associated with patient knowledge score, two factors were significant namely, patient occupation and number of dispensed drugs.

Based on this study, training of pharmacists to

be active members of the health care team and

to offer useful advice to patients about health

and dispensed drugs is very critical for

improvement of the quality of their practice.

Within the available resources and existing

level of training, the quality of dispensing

can be improved by giving priority to

patients with a low level of knowledge of

dispensed drugs, particularly older patients,

those with low educational level and those

with greater number of drugs.

Intervention studies aimed at improving

the quality of dispensing should be carried

out using patient knowledge scores.