Identifying Association Rules among Drugs in Prescription of a Single Drugstore Using Apriori Method

Abstract

These days, health care systems such as pharmacies and drugstores normally produce high vo-lumes of data. Consequently, utilizing data mining methods in health care systems has become a conventional process. In this research, Apriori algorithm has been applied to perform data mining using the data obtained from the prescriptions ordered within a pharmacy. Ten association rules were achieved from the assigned pharmaceutical drugs in those prescriptions using the afore-mentioned Apriori algorithm. The accuracy of these rules is also manually studied and reviewed by a physician. Among these association rules, Vitamin D and Calcium pills are the most interre-lated medications, and Omeprazole and Metronidazole rankd second in terms of association. The results of this study provide useful feedback information about associations among drugs