Abstract
Background: Knowledge of pharmacology forms the basis of rational pharmacotherapy practice. Teaching the medical students about systematic application of pharmacology in patients’ care forms an essential component. It facilitates the medical students to develop a methodical approach in solving patients’ clinical problems.

Objective: To compare rational pharmacotherapy approach in management of essential hypertension and acute bronchial asthma by MBBS students before and after exposure to WHO GGP guidelines.

Materials and Methods: Sixth-term MBBS students, conventionally trained in management of essential hypertension and acute bronchial asthma and randomly divided into group A (n=36) and group B (n=42), were asked to make a treatment plan for a hypothetical case of essential hypertension and acute bronchial asthma respectively in an open unstructured format. Following an interactive teaching session on WHO GGP guidelines for each group separately, both groups were asked to remake the treatment plan for the same hypothetical case in an objective structured format based on GGP. The treatment plan written before and after exposure to GGP was compared based on various steps of GGP. Paired student’s t test was used for analysis.

Results: The score enhancement with GGP (mean ± SD) in group A for defining the patient problem, setting up the therapeutic goal, selecting P drug, writing the prescription, providing the drug information, monitoring the drug treatment and updating drug information was 0.61±0.55, 0.53±0.51, 2.75±1.4, 9±1.24, 14.64±0.8, 6.08±1.59, and 3.39±1.02 respectively. The score enhancement (mean ± SD) in group B for the above mentioned steps was 0.85±0.36, 0.97±0.17, 1.73±1.57, 6.18±2.88, 6.21±1.47, 5.79±1.49 and 6.36±2.04 respectively. The score enhancement with GGP guidelines was statistically significant with p value 0.001 in both groups.

Conclusion: With widely rampant irrational prescribing behaviour in our country, the study showed statistically significant improvement in rational pharmacotherapy approach by medical students after exposure to GGP guidelines.

Key words: Rational pharmacotherapy, GGP guidelines