Study on practice of storage and handling of medicines in community pharmacies in pokhara, Nepal.

Thesis Report.

ABSTRACT: Good storage and handling practices are that part of quality management system that guarantees the quality of the pharmaceutical product through controlling various activities related to storage and distribution operations procedures. Storage conditions in the earlier stages of drugs manufacture receives attention but little work has been done in community and retail pharmacy settings in Nepal. This survey was conducted to study the current practice of storage and handling of medicines in community pharmacies in Pokhara sub-metropolitan city and their compliance to the good pharmacy practice guidelines. 85 community pharmacies were selected for the study using a checklist of 20 questions as per National Good Pharmacy Practice (NGPP) guidelines. Most of the pharmacies had average score of 12 out of 20. It was found that the practice of initial inspection of the medicines and handling of near expiry and expired medicines was excellent. However, practice of appropriate temperature control and protection of medicines from light, dust and humidity was not good with 25.9% of the pharmacies not complying with the requirements. These results indicate that the medicines in those pharmacies may be at risk of deteriorating quality. Only 24.7% of the pharmacies had clear procedures for handling controlled drugs and keeping records of them while most of them claimed not to store or dispense such drugs in their pharmacy. So it is important to implement strict procedures and monitoring on controlled drugs to prevent them from being misused. Therefore, it is necessary to implement the NGPP guidelines to monitor the good pharmacy practice and good storage practices at community and retail pharmacy settings.

Keywords: Storage, Medicines, Community, Pharmacy, Nepal

Eng.