Justification:

compliance of characteristics and content of prescriptions drugs help to decrease medication errors.

Objective:

to identify some patterns of prescription and dispensing of drugs for outpatient in 4 IPS the municipality of Villavicencio.

Method:

observational descriptive study, cross-sectional for a month, using WHO prescribing indicators, and verifying compliance with current Colombian law.

Results:

1493 analyzed prescriptions (28.8% developed by professionals unauthorized, 2.9% with erasures; 6% without diagnosis 9.2%, 6.7% contained at least one systemic antibiotic, 3.4% contained at least one injection). Of all prescription drugs: 99.79% generic name; 99.22% included in the list of essential medicines, 99.18% dispensed. 96.6 % had at least 1 prescription failure: only 31.4% contained unit dose; 32.8% of route of administration and 35.3% the duration of treatment. Prescriptions drugs misuse signals did not exceed 0.4%.

Conclusions:

the non-compliance with the 4 IPS of some requirements demanded in the Colombian regulations for medical prescription was identified, which may contribute to the generation of medication errors in the prescription and dispensing processes of medications.