PHARMASPIRE - Volume 10, Issue 2, April - June, 2018

Pages: 95-97

Date of Publication: 14-Jun-2022

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Drug utilization study in patients attending emergency department at a tertiary care hospital in Punjab: A prospective observational study

Author: Neha Joshi, Amit Sharma, Ashish Baldi , Dinesh Kumar Sharma

Category: Pharmaceutics

Abstract:

Drug utilization study is to make possible the intelligent use of medicines in populations. Trend of drug usage is studied to determine the incidence and prevalence of usage of drugs, to analyze whether the recommended guidelines for prescription are being followed or not. This is a prospective observational study of (N = 260) patients who were admitted in the Emergency Department of Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital, Faridkot and Garg Hospital, Moga, Punjab. A total of 260 prescriptions were analyzed and sum of drugs prescribed was 1449. The mean of drugs prescribed per prescription (World Health Organization indicator of standard prescription) was 5.70 ± 0.212. Of sum of drugs encountered, i.e., 1449, 71.35% (1034) of the drugs were administered through injectable form. The most common disease or condition which was responsible for emergency admission was metabolic disorder (N = 47) followed by cardiovascular disease (N = 44). It was also estimated that polypharmacy was commonly prevalent in most of the prescription analyzed. Of 260 patients, 63.5% (N = 165) of patients were on polypharmacy. Our study concluded that polypharmacy was more often practiced; hence, there is a need to restrict polypharmacy as it is a matter of concern to decrease incidence of drug interactions and adverse drug reactions too. The antibiotics were the most commonly prescribed drugs; hence, there should be rational use of antibiotics. Even overuse of proton-pump inhibitors and overdosing antibiotics are areas of concern.

Keywords: Drugs, drug utilization evaluation, emergency department, polypharmacy

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