Improving the Prescribing Quality and Pattern of Pharmaceutical Drugs in Lebanon

Abstract

In Lebanon, prescription pharmacological medications inappropriately raises healthcare expenses, puts patient safety at serious risk, and fuels drug resistance. There are insufficient safeguards in the current healthcare system to encourage sensible medication prescriptions. A comprehensive strategy incorporating multi-level interventions is required to address this problem. At the regulatory level, laws should control how medical professionals deal with the pharmaceutical business and guarantee the quality of all medications on the market, even generic versions. Appropriate prescribing can be encouraged at the organisational level through the use of clinical pharmacy services, prescription audits, standardised clinical guidelines, and antimicrobial stewardship initiatives. Academic detailing, problem-based pharmacotherapy training, and conflict of interest education are essential at the professional level. Encouraging patients to take their drugs as prescribed is also crucial to tackling the problem. Time and money limits for clinician education, as well as opposition from organisations that depend on industry financing, are obstacles to adoption. Improving prescribing quality and lowering the related health risks and financial costs on patients and society will require addressing these issues with focused measures at every level.