Impact of problem-based pharmacotherapy course on the competence of rational prescribing of Sudanese undergraduate medical students

Abstract EN

Background : Prescription writing is a skill that almost every doctor will use several times a day.

But are medical students effectively taught how to write a complete and accurate prescription? Most commonly the answer is no.

There is increasing need for the rational use of medicines and the clearly appropriate prescribing is a key to achieve this.

Objectives : To find out whether a short training course of problem-based pharmacotherapy teaching, improves the competence of rational prescribing among medical students.

Methods : All 6th year medical students (Batch 13), Omdurman Islamic university were randomly separated into intervention and control group.

Students of intervention group were taught to choose P-drug for different diseases and how to apply this choice to specific patient problem, using the WHO-six steps problem solving approach.

Results : The competence of intervention group is significantly better than the control group p = 0.011.

The mean results of post test for intervention group was [3.4 ± 4.5] and for the control group was [2.1 ± 1.9].

Conclusion : Teaching medical students all basic knowledge about drugs does not guarantee rational prescribing.

Additional short course of problem-based pharmacotherapy could be effective in improving prescribing skills Sudanese medical students.