Unreasonable Consumption of Narcotic Drugs Following Appendectomy and Hernioraphy

Unreasonable consumption of narcotic drugs may cause several problems such as the incidence of some side effects, dependence and inappropriate pain relief. Drug Utilization Review (DUR) program – that nowadays is one of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education’s priorities - is to assess the problems of drug prescribing and usage, and present reforming suggestion to medical providers. This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed in surgical ward of one of Tehran`s hospitals for Two Six months’ periods. At first a standard protocol was prepared. All hospitalized patients who had received narcotic drugs via injection after surgery entered the study. In whole 200 reviewed patients, generally 26 (13%) patients taking narcotic drugs were according to protocol and 174 (87%) cases were against the protocol. In this cross-sectional study only 49 of 100 patients had pain relief after receiving narcotic drugs via injection. Physician orders were inappropriate and in 13 (6.5%) cases, there was no medical prescription. 50% of patients still had pain after drug injection that was due to medical provider's concern for drug dependence in patients and lack of due supervision by the physician in charge.