Abstrait

Drug usage pattern in indoor patients of general medicine department at a tertiary care teaching hospital

Sadhukhan AD*, Amin RH, Shah RR

Background: Drug usage research can be defined as the marketing, distribution, prescription, and utilization of drugs in a society, with particular prominence on the resultant medical, social and economic outcomes. Its main application is providing data about pattern, quality and effect of drug use. The probability of toxic reactions increases during excessive drug use. Drug misuse will lead to needless adverse drug effects and drug-drug interactions. Drug-Drug Interactions are an avertable source of morbidity and mortality. Objectives: To study drug usage pattern for generating data on drug utilization in patients. To identify potential targets in drug prescribing patterns and documents the prevalence of such events. To identify common medications that can cause adverse events in inpatients. Setting: A Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital. Methods: We carried out a cross-sectional observational study at a tertiary care teaching hospital in Gujarat. Patients matching the inclusion criteria were enrolled in the study. We collected and recorded patient data related to drug usage pattern in the data collection forms. We evaluated the prescriptions for drug usage pattern, polypharmacy and potentially significant drug-drug interactions using Micromedex Drug Reax. Main outcome measures: To decrease the number of observable drug-drug interactions and promote patient safety. Results: We observed that approximately 8.7 drugs were prescribed to each patient. 21.07% drugs were prescribed to the age group of 61-70 years. Cardiovascular agents accounted for highest percentage of prescribed drugs (32.71%), followed by 17.92% supplements and 14.43% gastrointestinal agents. 69 % of drug-drug interactions was found, of which 52.15% were major drugdrug interactions, followed by 43.01% moderate drug-drug interactions. The most percentage of drugdrug interactions was found in the age group 51-60 years which was 25.26%. We observed the highest percentage of drug-drug interactions with anticoagulants (11.20%), followed by diuretics (5.1%) and supplements and other drugs (4.65%). 18.27% out of total drug-drug interactions were perceived in patients, out of which 64.07% were managed. Conclusions: The escalating drift of polypharmacy and the perceptible drug-drug interactions in indoor patients calls for an interventional study and careful monitoring of patients to reduce the number of adverse outcomes and enhance patient safety.