Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Cost Analysis of Medications Used in Upper Respiratory Tract Infections and Prescribing Patterns in University Sans Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia

Ahmad Abdulrahman Almeman¹ , Mohamed Izham Mohamed Ibrahim², Seemab Rasool³

¹Pharmacy School-Uniazah, Almulaida, Qassim University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; ²College of Pharmacy, Qatar University, Qatar; ³Prince Sultan Cardiac Center, Buraidah ,Qassim , Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

For correspondence:- Ahmad Almeman Email: ahmadalmeman@gmail.com Tel:+00966548889712

Received: 4 April 2014 Accepted: 16 February 2014 Published: 23 April 2014

Citation: Almeman AA, Ibrahim MI, Rasool S. Cost Analysis of Medications Used in Upper Respiratory Tract Infections and Prescribing Patterns in University Sans Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia. Trop J Pharm Res 2014; 13(4):621-626 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v13i4.21

© 2014 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To conduct a cost analysis, a narrow cost-utility study, for upper respiratory tract infection medications in University Sans Malaysia’s clinics.

Methods: Retrospective analysis was done for all medical claims of upper respiratory tract infections in the period 2008 - 2009. The study was done in the clinics under University Sains Malaysia. A total of 302 patients suffering from upper respiratory tract infection were enrolled. Cost analysis of the pattern of antibiotic prescriptions for upper respiratory tract infections was done. For cost analysis, costs were calculated based on the acquisition cost from the perspective of the medical center (USM) as the provider.

Results: The research results states that there were 90% among the patients were prescribed an antibiotic, 81 percent were prescribed an antihistamine, 81 percent were prescribed an analgesic, and 21 percent were prescribed a mucolytic or an expectorant.

Conclusion: In comparison to the previously revised researchers, the percentage of the prescribed antibiotics is very high which is unacceptable. A tremendous amount of expenditure and other adverse events can be avoided by halting this behavior. A local guideline for prescribing antibiotics and implementing the same is the need of the hour.

Keywords: Prescribing patterns, Cost analysis, Upper respiratory tract, Infections, Antibiotics