1Dr Abdullah Ansari, MD (Pharmacology), PhD Scholar, Institute of Health Professions Education, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth, Puducherry, India. Email: draansariacademics@gmail.com
2Dr M Shivasakthy, MDS, PGDHPE, PhD, Director, Institute of Health Professions Education, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth, Puducherry, India. Email: shivasakthym@gmail.com
3Dr Kamal Hasan, MD (Internal Medicine), Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Ayaan Institute of Medical Sciences, India. Email: mkh.hasan79@gmail.com
Corresponding author: Dr Abdullah Ansari, PhD Scholar, Institute of Health Professional Education, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth, Puducherry, India. Phone: +91-9502106000, Email: aa66137@gmail.com
Introduction: Writing a medication order is an important task that any doctor is entitled with. It is highly important for medical students to attain necessary prescribing competencies before individual practice. However, it is noted that maximum medication errors are committed by junior doctors due to lack in essential clinical pharmacological and the applied knowledge. Introducing educational interventions that helps the students achieve necessary prescribing competencies is the need of the hour.
Methods: A 3 day interactive workshop on clinical pharmacology and therapeutics module was conducted for medical students before starting internship. A pre test and post test was conducted before and after the workshop to assess the effect of workshop on their clinical and pharmacological skills.
Result: A pre test was conducted on all the students followed by a 3 day interactive workshop by experienced faculty members. At the end of the workshop, a post test was conducted. The result was evaluated using students paired t test. The mean test score significantly improved from 5.47 ± 1.9 [pre-test mean] to 7.63 ± 1.75 [post-test mean] (p < 0.01).
Conclusion: Lack in essential medical competencies amongst the junior doctors is the most common cause of medication errors. Educational interventions like interactive workshop on clinical pharmacology and therapeutics can be help improve their prescribing competencies and help decreased medication errors. However, larger studies involving larger study population focussing on longer effect of the intervention are needed to come to a final conclusion.
Keywords: medical education; workshop; prescription errors; clinical pharmacology and therapeutics; educational intervention
How to cite this article: Ansari A, Shivasakthy M, Hasan K. Impact of a Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Workshop on Prescription Errors among Medical Interns. Int J Drug Deliv Technol. 2026;16(2): 599-606. DOI: 10.25258/ijddt.16.2.64
Source of support: Nil.
Conflict of interest: None