Evaluation of Drug Prescription to under-5-year-old Children by Junior Paramedics in Rey City (2002)

Introduction: The present research studies the evaluation of drug prescriptions for under-5-year-old children and their effective factors carried out by junior paramedics at Rey City.

Materials and Methods: In this study 28 health houses, medical family files of 589 patients/children, 55 junior paramedics for their drug prescription to children under 5 years old, and their regular follow-ups were assessed. Two questionnaires were used for the study. The first questionnaire contained information about children’s drug prescriptions and variables evaluated in relation to drug prescription dose,  duration of consumption and the cure duration period, which carried out in 589 under 5 year children. The second questionnaire contained information of junior paramedics in health houses. Since, in most of the health houses, more than one junior paramedic works, and we cannot find out which one of them has prescribed drugs for children, therefore we use the average of age and combination of some of the codes related to educational status.

Results: The interval between drug prescriptions, in 73.2% of cases, and the length of treatment in 84.1% of them were appropriately chosen. In 50.5% of the cases in dire need of management, no appropriate and necessary follow-ups to make sure that earlier actions have been successful or effective were fulfilled by the junior paramedics.

Conclusion: One of the important constraints of the research is the high percentage of unrecorded cases by the junior paramedics. Although the results indicated logical prescription of drugs by the junior paramedics, they are far from satisfactory conditions, thus those who are responsible in this regard, should supervise their performances much more carefully.