ABSTRACT
Background: Adverse drug reaction (ADR) is an inevitable risk associated with all the prescribed medicines. They vary in severity & duration in any population. Thus, ADRs are monitored and assessed on a large scale in our country by the Pharmacovigilance programme of India through adverse drug reaction monitoring centres. This study was taken to assess the pattern of ADR reported in a tertiary care hospital in Haryana.Methods: This study was conducted in the Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College, Karnal, Haryana from January 2018 to June 2019. ADRs were collected from different departments and were analysed according to gender, age, department wise distribution, drugs class involved and ADR that was reported.Results: A total of 233 ADRs were reported in the above mentioned period. Females were affected more than males, maximum number reported in the age group of 21-60 years. The maximum number of ADRs reported was from Dermatology department. Antimicrobials were the class of drugs that were responsible for the maximum number of ADRs reported. Skin manifestations of various types were the most reported ADRs.Conclusions: By keeping a careful and timely watch majority of the ADRS can be prevented by early intervention. There is also a need to ensure timely check on the drugs supplied by the various pharmaceutical companies who get the contract for government supply. This will be a step towards improving patient safety.
ABSTRACT
Patients use medicines to gain speedy recovery from illness or to maintain wellbeing under the care of their physicians. For chronic illnesses, the pharmacotherapy may continue for the entire lifetime. Significant expenditure is incurred in sustaining this pharmacotherapy. Quite expectedly, the patients are concerned about the quality of medicines that they receive and consume. In recent times, the quality concerns have increased phenomenally due to media hype and overexposure all around. Ensuring quality of medicines in developing countries is not easy. Multi-pronged approaches are needed to ensure procurement of good quality medicines by institutional buyers. However, ensuring the procurement of good quality medicines is not enough. The quality of medicines has to be maintained till their consumption by patients and a rational, scientific method has to be adopted to ensure this goal. A structured approach in ensuring good quality medicines for optimum pharmacotherapy is being presented in this review.
ABSTRACT
Background: The present study was conducted to analyze the prescribing patterns and utilization of antihypertensive drugs at a tertiary care center in India. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of prescriptions of patients of essential hypertension attending outpatient department of a tertiary care hospital during the period of December 2011 to March 2012 was done. Hypertensive patients with comorbidities were excluded from study. The data were analyzed to fi nd out demographic characteristics of patients, number of drugs prescribed per prescription, drugs, which are commonly prescribed, antihypertensive drugs used concurrently, percentage of drugs prescribed by generic name and over all drug utilization frequency. Results: During the study period, 465 prescriptions for hypertension were analyzed. This study revealed that most of the patients were on combination of antihypertensive drugs (67.97%) while 31.18% patients received mono therapy. Among mono therapy drugs, calcium channel blockers (CCB) (31.03%) were prescribed most. Utilization of other major drug classes as mono therapy in decreasing order is angiotensinconverting enzyme inhibitors (28.28%), diuretics (17.93%), beta-blockers (11.72%) and angiotensin receptor blockers (10.34%). Among those who were treated with drug combinations, 64.24% received 2-drug, 25.95% received 3-drug regimen and 8.54% received 4-drug regimen. In combination therapy, 2-drug combination consisting of a CCB and a diuretic was most commonly (24.14%) prescribed. Conclusions: This study represents the current prescribing patterns for antihypertensive drugs and provides the baseline data for similar studies in future, as patterns in prescribing antihypertensive drugs keep changing.