Effects of China's National Essential Medicines Policy on the Use of Injection in Primary Health Facilities

The overuse of injection exists more than 20 years since economic reform in China.It is a persistent problem and seems becoming a new challenge in the new health reform period.This study was designed to assess the effect of national essential medicines policy(NEMP) on injection use at primary health facilities in China by investigating their prescription information.Questionnaires were designed and disseminated to collect empirical data on injection use at 120 primary health facilities in 6 provinces from January to September in 2010 and 2011.The injection use was measured as the indicator as the percentage of prescriptions with one or more injections.The results showed that the percentage of prescriptions with one or more injections was decreased from 38.91% to 36.82%(2 =11.158,P=0.001) in the all survey areas during the NEMP reform.The difference in level of the injection use in 2011 was significant among the eastern,central and western regions(2 =223.584,P=0.000);level of the injection use in western region was the lowest(27.73%),while that in the central region was the highest(43.10%).The level of the injection use in 2011 among different provinces was also of great difference(26.00%-58.25%,range:32.25%).The level of the injection use in 2011 was still much higher than the standard suggested by WHO for developing countries(13.4%-24.1%).It was concluded that NEMP has improved injection use in China,but the injection abuse situation remains serious,indicating that one of the priorities to the next stage of NEMP is to promote the rational use of drugs,especially the injection use.

The impacts of national essential medicine policies on the rational use of medicines in China: A cross-sectional study in primary health care institution

Irrational use of medicines is a major problem worldwide, and it is believed there would be positive correlation between the National Essential Medicines Policies(NEMPs) and the level of rational use of medicines(RUMs). Though there is some early evidence on the NEMPs’ effects on RUMs in China, the evidence is scarce, and conclusions vary. In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the impacts of the NEMPs of China on the RUMs in the primary health care institutions(PHCs). A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2010. A total of 201 PHCs from six provinces of China were selected, and 39 181 prescriptions were extracted from January to June, 2010. Six indicators were used and tested by independent-samples T test. We found that the average number of drugs per prescription in PHCs with NEMP implementation(the treatment group) was significantly higher than that of the group without NEMP implementation(the control group)(3.37 vs. 2.83, P<0.01). There was no significant difference in the average cost per prescription(81.43 vs. 75.02). The percentage of prescriptions, including an antibiotic(53.40% vs. 36.48%, P<0.01) or an injection(40.54% vs. 27.94%, P<0.01), was higher in the treatment group, and the percentage of drugs prescribed by general name was significantly lower(83.71% vs. 93.11%, P<0.01). For the percentage of drugs prescribed from essential medicines list, the treatment group exhibited the higher ratio(76.12% vs. 53.45%, P<0.01). From this study, the NEMPs were not likely to have a positive impact on RUMs. China still needed efforts to improve the selection, the absence of physicians’ active involvement, and the patients’ habits of irrational medication use.