Study of drug utilization pattern in emergency medicine ward at a tertiary care teaching hospital

Authors

  • Mamatha V. Department of Pharmacology, Mysore Medical College and Research Institute, Mysore, Karnataka, India
  • Parashivamurthy B. M. Department of Pharmacology, Mysore Medical College and Research Institute, Mysore, Karnataka, India
  • Suneetha D. K. Department of Pharmacology, Mysore Medical College and Research Institute, Mysore, Karnataka, India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20171095

Keywords:

Drug utilization, Polypharmacy, WHO prescribing indicators

Abstract

Background: The emergency department represents an important platform for conducting drug utilization studies as patients present with a wide spectrum of diseases in acute form. An irrational prescription adversely affects the prognosis and recovery of patients. Hence, the objective of our study was to evaluate the drug utilization pattern and to determine the rationality of prescription using WHO prescribing indicators in emergency medicine ward.

Methods: After obtaining Institutional Ethical Committee approval, a prospective observational study was conducted over 2 months. The case records of 150 patients admitted to the emergency medicine ward, with a hospital stay of more than 24hrs were reviewed to analyze the prescription pattern during the initial 48hrs of admission. Case records of patients irrespective of age, sex and diagnosis were included in the study. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the results (SPSS version 20).

Results: A total of 1014 drugs were prescribed from 150 case records with a mean age of 47±18 years. An average of 6.76 drugs was prescribed per prescription; percentage of encounters with at least an antimicrobial was 115 (76.66%). Injections were prescribed in all patients (100%) and only 416 (41.02%) drugs were prescribed by generic name and 657 (64.79%) drugs abided to the WHO essential drug list. Majority of patients received anti-ulcerogenic drugs followed by antimicrobials.

Conclusions: There was a tendency of polypharmacy with overuse of PPIs and antimicrobials. There is need to rationalize the drug therapy in terms of increasing prescription of drugs from essential drug list by generic name.

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Published

2017-03-25

How to Cite

V., M., B. M., P., & D. K., S. (2017). Study of drug utilization pattern in emergency medicine ward at a tertiary care teaching hospital. International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology, 6(4), 868–873. https://doi.org/10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20171095

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Original Research Articles