Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring in Psychiatry Outpatient Department of a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital.

ABSTRACT

To study the pattern of adverse drug reactions (ADR) in patients attending psychiatry OPD of a tertiary care teaching hospital. Patients attending psychiatry OPD with ADRs due to drugs prescribed for various psychiatric illnesses over a period of 1year were included in the study. Adverse event history, medication history and other relevant details were entered in the PvPI format. Causality was assessed by WHOUMC criteria. A total of 103 ADRs were reported from 85 prescriptions with a female preponderance. Majority of ADRs (45.7%) were seen with antidepressants as they were the commonly prescribed drugs followed by antipsychotics (33.3%) and others by sedative hypnotics and anticonvulsants. ADRs like somnolence topped the list (21.9%) followed by weight gain (18.4%), akathesia (6.8%) and drug induced restless legs syndrome (RLS) (5.8%). The reported ADRs were assessed for causality and maximum (80.6%) belong to the "possible" category. Maximum ADRs were seen with antidepressants followed by antipsychotics. Sedation and weight gain were the most commonly occurring ADRs.