Polypharmacy and potential drug-drug interactions in adult outpatients receiving cardiovascular drugs

ABSTRACT

Background: The prevalence of polypharmacy is rising and is particularly relevant to cardiovascular diseases. Assessing the extent of polypharmacy and potential drug-drug interactions (pDDIs) is an essential first step in improving safe and rational use of drugs. Aims and Objective: This study aims to study the frequency of polypharmacy and pDDI in adult outpatients receiving cardiovascular drugs. Materials and Methods: Prescriptions of all adult outpatients receiving at least one cardiovascular drug were considered for the study. A total of 2027 prescriptions were analyzed for estimating rate of polypharmacy. Out of these, 335 randomly selected prescriptions were analyzed with the help of an online drug interaction checker software for estimating rate of pDDIs, commonly involved drug pairs and severity of pDDI. Results: The rate of polypharmacy in cardiac outpatients was 56.93% and that of pDDI was 78.81%. The commonly involved drugs in interactions were amlodipine, atenolol, calcium carbonate, atorvastatin, metformin, furosemide, and aspirin. One-third of pDDIs were categorized to be of minor severity while half of the pDDIs belonged to monitor closely category. Conclusion: Polypharmacy and pDDI are common in cardiac outpatients.