ANALYSIS OF DRUG-DRUG INTERACTIONS IN PRESCRIPTIONS FROM A TERTIARY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL OF NORTH INDIA: AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY
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Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Managing a disease state often requires multiple medicines simultaneously leading to drug-drug interactions. It results in failure of therapy or toxicity.
OBJECTIVE: To assess prevalence of drug-drug interactions and their desirability to analyse preventable events.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study design was a prospective, and observational study. The study included 150 randomly collected prescriptions from the medical outpatient department of a tertiary care teaching hospital in North India, irrespective of gender or diagnosis. The study was conducted in Dec 2023 over a period of 2 months after taking ethical clearance from the Institutional Ethics Committee. Data was collected, tabulated, analysed using descriptive statistics by using Microsoft excel.
Main outcome measured was occurrence of drug-drug interactions.
RESULTS:
Total number of medicines prescribed was 86 types of medicines in 150 prescriptions.
Average medicines prescribed per prescription was 5.6 drugs
Monotherapy was prescribed in 3.3% prescriptions. There were 46.6% prescriptions with less than 5 drugs and 50.1% prescriptions with more than 5 drugs.
The prevalence of drug-drug interactions was 33%(49/150). 30 drug-drug interactions were found related to CVS,13 from Endocrinology, 3 from Antibiotics, 2 from Analgesics, and 1 each from Steroids and CNS drugs respectively.
CONCLUSION: Drug-drug interactions (DDIs) were common and often undesirable, therefore preventable. This study underscores the importance of reducing drug drug interactions in prescriptions to enhance the quality of healthcare in hospitals. It highlights areas for improvement in prescription practice.
References
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Dr Khushbakht Kaur
Junior Resident, Department of Pharmacology, Govt Medical College Amritsar. M
Dr Gurpreet Kaur Randhawa
Professor and Head, Department of Pharmacology Govt Medical College, Amritsar
Dr Ranjeet Kumar
Assistant Professor Department of Pharmacology Govt Medical College, Amritsar
Dr Keerat Kaur Kullar
Attending Consultant, Critical Care Department Max Hospital, Mohali.
Dr Saurabh Bijalwan
Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, Govt Medical College, Amritsar.