Background and Importance Prescription validation is the diligence, manual or electronic, by which it is authorised, for a specific patient, that certain medicines, medical devices (PS), enteral nutrition (NE) and dietotherapeutic products (PD) can be dispensed from public funds.

Aim and Objectives The objective of the study is to assess the usefulness of validation as a control tool in the prescription, through the analysis of the incidents/causes of denial of this validation, carried out by pharmacists of the validation unit (UV)of the pharmacy service (SF) in a tertiary hospital

Material and Methods The pharmacists received daily by telematic means in the electronic validation module, the validation reports (the prescription together with the clinical report), completed by the prescriber, which include the following data: administration schedule and duration of treatment, main diagnosis and indication. By means of validation, the conformity of the prescribed treatment is verified, with the indications authorised in the technical sheet and the financing conditions. As a support tool, the lists of drugs submitted to validation and the available protocols were used. Denial was made if incidents were detected

To classify the detected incidents, the following variables were recorded: medication, PS, NE and PD, medical specialty of the prescriber, date of the report and reason for pending data. According to the type of incident detected, they were classified into (1) unfunded indication; (2) completion errors; (3)absence of computerised validation report; (4) absence of clinical report; and (5) other causes.

Results A total of 16,039 reports were analysed for validation, between March and December 2022. The reports that registered some incidence were 1930 (12%), remaining pending observations and not validated. The reasons for refusal were the following: unfunded indication (58.8%), completion errors – insufficient or incorrect prescription data – (23.6%), absence of computerised validation report (13.5%), absence of clinical report (2.9%) and other causes -unauthorised indication in the technical sheet, hospital diagnostic medication without a specialist report and shortages (1.2%).

Conclusion and Relevance Validation is positioned as a useful tool for the proper use of medicines since it guarantees that they are used according to the indications authorised in the technical sheet. It represents an improvement in the quality of the prescription, because, although most prescriptions conform to their financed indication, some incidents have been detected that were resolved by pharmacists, thus avoiding errors that affect patient safety.

Conflict of Interest No conflict of interest.