Assessment of knowledge on pharmacotherapeutics among undergraduate medical students in a South Indian medical college

Background: Pharmacotherapeutics knowledge is important for rational drug therapy. Assessment of knowledge on emergency and non-emergency medical conditions in medical students will be helpful to   develop a methodological approach in building knowledge on patient care and in improving quality of medical education.Methods: It was a questionnaire based cross- sectional study conducted among undergraduate medical students in MIMS college after taking Institutional ethical committee permission. The students of final MBBS part-I and final MBBS part-II and house surgeons were given semi-structured questionnaires. It constitutes questions on awareness of pharmacotherapeutics of non-emergency (20) and emergency (8) medical conditions.Results: Received a total of 284 responses, of them 43.32%, 39.43% and 17.25% are from final MBBS part-I, final MBBS part-II and house surgeons respectively. 48.1% students agreed that undergraduate training sufficient to confidently give a safe prescription to the patient. The overall knowledge of the students in pharmacotherapeutics relating to certain non-emergency conditions is found to be 64.89% and relating to emergency conditions, it is 62.98%.Conclusions: Knowledge on emergency and non-emergency PT is moderate. Appropriate training programs are needed to improve this situation. Regular evaluative measures also help to overcome the present situation

Effect of telmisartan in hypertensive patients with impaired fasting glycaemia

Background: Telmisartan, an angiotensin II receptor blocker, has a higher affinity for AT1 receptors. It has also been recognized as partial agonist of the nuclear hormone receptor PPAR-gamma. The present study is conducted to study the effect of Telmisartan in hypertensive patients with impaired fasting glycaemia.Methods: This is a prospective and randomised study done on 50 hypertensive patients with impaired fasting glycaemia. All the patients underwent following investigations like Fasting plasma glucose, blood pressure and body mass index were also measured.Results: Fasting plasma glucose, blood pressure (SBP, DBP) showed significant decrease after intake of 40 mg Telmisartan for three months. Changes in BMI are not significant.Conclusions: The present study shows that Telmisartan is effective in controlling blood-pressure by its AT1 receptor blocking activity. It is also effective in decreasing fasting blood glucose by its insulin sensitizing activity through partial peroxisome proliferator activated receptor (PPAR) gamma activity

Awareness on antibiotic usage among undergraduate medical students in a teaching hospital, Guntur

Background: Antibiotics are the mainstay treatment of most of the infectious diseases. Inappropriate and irrational use of antimicrobial agents has led to increase in the development of antimicrobial resistance. Medical students are a part of health care system and they must be aware of increasing antibiotic resistance as they are the future prescribers. The objectives of the study were to assess the awareness on antibiotic usage and its resistance among medical students and to study the perception on antibiotic medication among medical students.Methods: This was a cross-sectional, semi-structured questionnaire-based study. Questionnaire consists of 4 parts- socio-demographic details, awareness on antibiotics and its resistance, knowledge on specific treatment of a disease, perception levels. Prior IEC approval was taken. The obtained data was statistically analyzed using Microsoft excel sheet.Results: Among 230 participants, majority of the students have awareness on general antibiotic usage and 97.8% were having knowledge about antibiotic resistance. The main source of information on antibiotic resistance is identified as classroom teaching (67.8%). 46.9% and 25.2% students correctly identified the drug of choice for treating enteric fever and community acquired pneumonia respectively.Conclusions: Degrees of awareness on antibiotics and its resistance is found to be good. Antibiotic usage pattern is not on par with knowledge. Knowledge on specific treatment of infectious disease is found to be less. So, antibiotic teaching should be integrated with clinical subjects

Study of prescribing pattern of antihypertensive drugs in diabetic patients in a tertiary care centre, Vizianagaram, India

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) and Hypertension (HTN) are the two major chronic disorders frequently coexisting, with increased incidence with age. HTN is about twice as common in patients with DM. Prescribing pattern are powerful tools to ascertain the role of drugs in society. There are many variations in prescribing patterns of antihypertensive drugs in patients with HTN and DM. Since these patients requires lifelong treatment it has enormously increased the burden of patients particularly in developing countries like India. Physician needs to be more concerned while choosing drugs for the patients with HTN and DM. In a tertiary care hospital, there is a real need for drug utilization study to determine the appropriate, more safe and effective patterns of drug therapy among diabetic hypertensive patients.Methods: A Cross sectional observational study was conducted in Maharajah’s Institute of Medical Sciences from December 2016 to May 2018. A total of 360 prescriptions of the patients with hypertension and coexisting diabetes were analyzed. The prescriptions prescribed to these patients were collected, assessed and the following parameters were noted. The treatment pattern of different group of drugs for HTN with co-existing DM was evaluated. The intended work was divided into three steps: Step 1: To collect the prescriptions of hypertensive patients with DM. Step 2: To separate the prescriptions prescribing anti hypertensive Drugs. Step 3: To statistically analyze the prescriptions. Relevant information was recorded in a structured proforma & data was evaluated.Results: In this study it was found that 36% of the patients were in the age group of 51-60 years with female preponderance among diabetic hypertensive patients. 77% of patients were treated with single antihypertensive drug and 23% of patients were treated with antihypertensive drug combinations. In monotherapy, telmisartan was most commonly prescribed. In combination therapy, amlodipine and telmisartan followed by amlodipine and atenolol were used.Conclusions: In this study monotherapy was preferred compared to combination therapy and adherence to the JNC 7 guidelines was good except in case of usage of diuretics

Retracted: Evaluation of factors influencing drug adherence to anti retroviral therapy (ART) in a tertiary care hospital, Guntur Andhra Pradesh, India

The article "Evaluation of factors influencing drug adherence to anti retroviral therapy (ART) in a tertiary care hospital, Guntur Andhra Pradesh, India" is retracted by the Editor and Publisher, as per the request of corresponding author Dr. Bheemesh Naidu Mattam and co-authors, due to an unintended mistake. The Moriskys Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8) was used without proper permission