RESUMEN
Indoor patients in hospitals frequently use corticosteriods for different indications. As the number of drugs in prescriptions increases, the risk of drug-drug interactions increases. This study deals with the frequent use and drug-drug of corticosteriods. The present study was designed to determine the frequency of use of corticosteriods in indoor patients and the resulting drug-drug interactions. 270 Prescriptions of indoor patients from different wards of Aziz Bhatti Shahid teaching hospital Gujrat were collected randomly over the period of three months. These prescriptions were subjected to a drug-drug interaction software based analysis. The results were collected analysed and presented in the form of tables. The patient charts containing prescriptions included in this study were collected overthe period of three monthsThe software named THE MEDICAL LETTER ADVERSE DRUG INTERACTION PROGRAM was selected for finding the drug-drug interactions in randomly selected indoor patient charts. Moreover, the frequency of use of corticosteriods was determined by simply counting the prescriptions containing corticosteriods out of total prescriptions and its percentage was found. 29.25% patient charts were including corticosteriods in their prescriptions. Percentage of corticosteriod drug interactions found was 25.55%. Conclusions: Frequent use of corticosteriods in indoor patients can increase the risk of drug-drug interactions that should be monitored regularly
RESUMEN
Benzodiazepines and its derivatives are used widely as anxiolytics, hypnotics, seizure control and as muscle relaxants. The prescriptions of 270 patients were evaluated for moderate to severe drug interactions using drug interaction detection software. Teaching hospital in Gujrat, Pakistan. This study is used to evaluate the possible toxic effects of benzodiazepine related drug-drug interactions in prescriptions of indoor patients. The prescriptions were processed through a software program named, The Medical Letter Adverse Drug Interaction program. The randomly collected patient chart profiles included both male and female patients ranging from age of few months old children to old aged patients. Out of 270 patients medication charts 210 medication charts were having at least one or more drug interactions ranging from moderate to severe. Out of 80 interacting drug combinations found, 15 were benzodiazepine related drug interactions. So, percentage of benzodiazepines related drug interactions was 18.75%.Moreover, the data also showed that the percentage of DDIs increases as the prescription size increases. Our results indicate that hospitalized patients in Pakistan are at risk of ADRs caused by potential DDIs. Moreover, there are chances that the safe therapeutic doses of benzodiazepines may become toxic or ineffective due to drug-drug interactions and poly pharmacy. So, the use of DDIs detection software programs in hospitals and pharmacies should be promoted in order to minimize drugs especially benzodiazepines related injuries and to ensure patient safety