PATTERN OF PSYCHOTROPIC PRESCRIPTION IN A TERTIARY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

objectives: (1) To study the prescription pattern of psychotropic drugs amongst patients attending the psychiatry outpatient department (OPD) in atertiary care hospital, Mandya, (2) to evaluate patterns and recent trends in psychotropic polypharmacy.Methods: This was a prospective, cross-sectional and observational study, done over 8 weeks, among patients attending psychiatry OPD. The most recentprescribed psychopharmacological medication of the patients were collected in a standard proforma and analyzed according to World Health Organization(WHO) prescription indicators. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation were used wherever appropriate.Results: A total of 405 prescriptions were evaluated. Anti-epileptics (22.9%), antidepressants (19.7%) and antipsychotics (11.0%) were the commonlyadvocated drug groups in more than half of prescriptions. Phenobarbitone (30.2%), escitalopram (27.9%), and risperidone (48.9%) were commonly useddrugs among anti-epileptics, antidepressants, and antipsychotics, respectively. Nutraceuticals constituted 8.7% of total drugs. Percentage of drugs prescribedby generic name was 54.9%. Polypharmacy was prevalent in 2.7% of prescriptions. Percentage of drugs prescribed as fixed-dose combination was 21%.Conclusion: The WHO guidelines regarding prescription of drugs were followed consistently. The issue of prescribing by brand names need to beaddressed. Polypharmacy was advocated for negligible number of subjects and the reasons were justifiable.Keywords: Prescription audit, Polypharmacy, Psychopharmacological agent

Bedaquiline: A novel antitubercular drug for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis

Multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) are emerging global health threats. Bedaquiline is a new antituberculous drug belonging to the diarylquinoline class that efficiently inhibits the adenosine triphosphate synthase enzyme of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is a bactericidal and long-acting drug. It inhibits both dormant as well as replicating bacterial sub-populations and thus shortens the duration of TB treatment. This drug has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in December 2012 for the management of multidrug resistant-TB. The drug marks the introduction of a new addition to the TB armamentarium after four decades