Investigation of Off-label Drug Use in Pediatric Outpatient Department of Our Hospital

OBJECTIVE:To provide baseline data of safe and rational drug use in pediatrics. METHODS:The pediatrics outpatient prescriptions were randomly selected from pediatric department of The Second Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University during Mar. 2014-Feb. 2015. The behavior of off-label drug use was determined according to the content of drug instruction. The type of off-label drug use,the relationship of different age groups with various drugs were analyzed. RESULTS:A total of 2400 outpatient prescriptions were collected from pediatric department,5115 medication records were analyzed,involving 171 kinds of drugs. By the number of prescriptions,medication records and drug types,the incidence of off-label drug use were 59.08%,40.87% and 80.70%,respectively. The main categories of drug off-label use were off-label dosing frequency(43.03%),off-label dosage(29.55%)and off-label indication(18.83%). The incidence of off-label drug use in infants and adolescents ranked the top 2 places,being 67.58%,63.01%. The top-four drugs in the list of the incidence of off-label drug use were drugs for external use(55.56%),drugs for nerve system(54.12%),drugs for respiratory system(48.95%)and nutritional agents(48.09%). CONCLUSIONS:The phenomenon of drug off-label use is widespread in pediatric outpatient prescriptions.