Quality of medical prescriptions of students majoring in medicine

Abstract

Introduction: more than 138 million patients have been affected by medical errors and 2.6 million die every year, according to the World Health Organization. Failure in diagnosis, in the prescription of medicines and treatments and an inappropriate use of medical drugs are the three main causes of these high numbers.

Objective: to describe the quality of medical prescriptions of 4th-year medical students of the province of Guantánamo.

Method: an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out with a universe of 506 4th-year medical students of the University of Medical Sciences of Guantánamo. A sample of 167 prescribers (students) was selected, 33 % of the universe, selected by stratified random sampling. To gather the data of the students, a questionnaire was applied, which included the following variables: drug class, duration of treatment, administration route, pharmaceutical form, international common denomination and legibility.

Result: the assessment of the students with respect to the duration of the treatment was partially adequate with 79 students, for 47,3 %, assessed partially adequate with 103 students, for 61,7 %, in the criteria of route of administration and pharmaceutical form.

Conclusions: the quality of the medical prescriptions of students of 4th-year medical students was assessed as partially adequate, identifying as the most common errors the criteria of the route of, pharmaceutical form and the handwriting legibility.