RESUMO
Background: Increasing use of drugs has led to drug-drug interactions (DDIs) which necessitate their awareness among the health-care providers to reduce the hospital admissions due to their adverse drug reactions. Aim and Objectives: This study aims to assess and compare the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of DDIs among interns and nurses and to evaluate the impact of an educational program with a pre-and post-test questionnaire. Materials and Methods: An educational program about DDIs was conducted for the interns and nurses to evaluate their KAP by a pre-test and post-test pre-verified 20-point questionnaire about DDI. Results: There was a statistical significant difference (P < 0.05) in gender (females: Males = 77:16) among the interns and nurses and their mean age was 23 ± 0.87 years and 21.3 ± 0.83 years, respectively. Both the groups fared well in post-test compared to pre-test in the knowledge (questions=7), attitude (questions=5), and practice (questions=8) domain which was statistically significant. On comparing the post-test scores, both the groups showed no difference statistically (P > 0.05) in the knowledge and attitude domain, while the nurses group showed more improved mean score than interns in terms of practice of DDI. Conclusion: The educational program about DDIs was effective among the interns and nurses with regard to their KAP assessment and they equally performed well. This implies that the awareness program about DDIs was successful among the interns and nurses who form the lower strata in delivering the health-care needs to the society.
RESUMO
Objective:Aim of this study is to assess the drug utilization pattern of cardiovascular drugs in cardiology outpatient department (OPD). Methodology:This prospective, multicenter, cross-sectional observational study was conducted at three selected tertiary care hospitals from different regions in South India. A total of 1026 prescriptions of the patients attending cardiology OPD of these selected hospitals 342 each over a period of 12 months was randomly identified and included in this study then critically analysed for WHO/INRUD core prescribing indicators. Results:Medicines prescribed from NLEM were 89.27%, average drugs prescribed was 5, medicinesprescribed by its generic name were 2.33% and encounters with an injection prescribed were 14.52%. Commonly prescribed different class of drugs for CVDs patients were Anti-platelets (67.73%) followed by Statins (62.57%), Beta blockers (49.51%), ACE-inhibitors (40.93%), Angiotensin receptor blockers (30.40%), Calcium channel blockers (30.11%), Nitrates (25.34%), Diuretics (20.56%), Anticoagulants (20.27%), Vasodilators (9.94%) rest of the cardiovascular drugs were prescribed within 0.5-5% only, other class of drugs also prescribed for patients with different comorbidities are Anti-ulcers (69.10%), Opioid analgesics (4.09%), Antacids (3.80%), Anti-emetics and Pro-kinetics (1.85%), a pattern of poly-pharmacy was clearly evident, majority of drugs were prescribed as single drug (86.78%) whereas 13.21% as FDCs. The most commonly prescribed single drug was Aspirin (59.93%) and FDCs were Aspirin + Clopidogrel (40.24%). Anti-thrombotic agents’ particularly antiplatelet drugs expected to overtake anti-cholesterol drugs as the sales leader in the market. Maximum drugs were prescribed from the recent NLEM of India by most of practitioners its shows its acceptance and implementation by the prescribers.Conclusion: Deprescribing PPIs for the non-required patients is suggested to lower the risk of adverse drug interactions and economic burden to patients, also pharmacists needs to encourage the prescriptions with drugs in generic name if it’s deviated from the standards recommended by WHO/INRUD