Drug utilisation pattern in geriatric patients of a teritiary care teaching hospital: a retrospective study

Background: The objective of the study was to assess the prescribing pattern of drugs in geriatrics patient in a tertiary care hospital.Methods: A retrospective observational study was conducted by department of Pharmacology for a period of one year in patients above 65 years from case sheets of medical record section. WHO basic indicators were used for studying the prescribing pattern of drugs.Results: A total of 200 patients were included in the study. Respiratory tract and gastrointestinal infections were most commonly found among patients of geriatric age group. Among antibiotics ceftriaxone, cefixime, ampicillin, amoxicillin, azithromycin, ciprofloxacin, cotrimaxazole for upper respiratory tract infections and rantidine, norfloxacin for gastrointestinal tract infections were maximum utilized. Polypharmacy was prevalent and majority of drugs prescribed were by brand names because of free supply of drugs.Conclusions: There is a need to bring changes in the prescribing practices with particular emphasis on generic drug and restricting polypharmacy. Also antibiotic policy needs to be introduced in the hospital and continuous medical education besides evidence based medicine approach for rationale use of drugs

Adverse drug reactions observed in treatment of gastro intestinal and respiratory tract infections: a prospective analysis

Background: The aim of the study was to observe common adverse drug reactions in treatment of gastro intestinal and respiratory tract infections in a tertiary care hospitals.Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted by Departments of Pharmacology for a period of one year from prescriptions and case sheets of medical record section. Adverse drug reaction reporting forms and alert cards were used for reporting.Results: The drugs most commonly used for gastrointestinal tract and respiratory diseases are tablets norflox 400 mg, norflox-tz, taxim 200 mg, IV amikacin and iv amoxicillin (500 mg) and clavulanic acid (125 mg) combination. Systems affected by use of above drugs were skin and gastrointestinal tract. Urticaria on skin, abdominal pain, itching in genital area, ulcer on oral mucosa are the common adverse drug reactions observed.Conclusions: Drugs used for common gastrointestinal tract and respiratory tract infections alert cards should be issued to patients when prescribing and adverse drug reactions should be reported to higher centres. Brand names causing adverse reactions should be monitored regularly and their further usage should be based on signals from other centres. All tertiary care hospitals should have antimicrobial guidelines policy to reduce adverse drug reactions

Prescription audit of patients in a teritiary care hospital

Background: This study was prescribed errors to promote irrational use of drug and decrease patience compliance. Prescription audit can improve prescribing practices and patients to receive high quality drugs.Methods: The study was observational carried out in 150 patients attending outpatient department for period of 6 months from April 2019 to October 2019. Data was analysed using WHO core indicatorsResults: 16% of prescriptions demographic details like age, sex, age were incomplete. In few (15%) prescriptions omission of diagnosis and irrational combination was reported. Dosing errors like doses and duration of treatment were not mentioned in some of prescriptions. Percentage of antibiotics per prescription was found to be 23.64%, which is much higher than the ideal value recommended by WHO.Conclusions: The average number of drugs was higher in prescriptions and trend of polypharmacy was noted with antibiotics usage. Dosing error and few prescriptions were irrational FDCs. Generic drugs were written in majority of prescriptions from essential drug list. Our study need to highlight to write rational prescription by adhering to WHO guidelines with feed back to prescribers and training session regarding safe use of drugs