Abstract

POLYPHARMACY DOMINATED PRESCRIBING PATTERN OF ANTIPSYCHOTIC DRUGS IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Sayanti Karak*, Soumyabrata Hati, Sudipta Sil, Saikat Kumar Dalui, Swapan Kumar Dutta and Supreeti Biswas.

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Burden of illness resulting from psychiatric and behavioral disorders is enormous. Antipsychotic prescription patterns are fundamentally different across countries and even regions due to variations in factors including health care policies, availability and cost of drugs. Our objective was to study the prescription pattern of antipsychotic drugs in a tertiary care hospital. Methodology: It was an observational, cross sectional, unicentric study carried out in the Dept. of Psychiatry, for a period of three months. The prescription pattern of anti-psychotic drugs along with the pattern of various psychiatric diseases on either sex was studied. ADEs were also noted. Results: Out of 312 patients, 57.69% were males and 42.31% were females. Acute transient psychotic disorder (38.46%) was the commonest psychotic ailment with Bipolar disorder (21.15%) in second position followed by Schizophrenia (16.35%). Olanzapine (69.23%) was the most common antipsychotic prescribed with weight gain as the most commonly found adverse effect. In prescriptions most commonly used antidepressant was fluoxetine (18.27%) with adverse effect of sexual dysfunction. Commonly used anxiolytic was clonazepam (45.19%), mood stabilizer was lithium (15.38%) with their respective adverse effects are sedation and postural tremor. Polypharmacy was found in 47.12% of prescriptions. All the drugs were prescribed in generic name. Discussion and Conclusion: Acute Transient Psychotic disorder was the commonest psychotic ailment followed by Bipolar disorder and Schizophrenia among 21-40 yrs age group with male dominancy. Polypharmacy was a major problem. All are generic prescriptions.

Keywords: Drug utilization, Psychiatry patients, Burdwan region, prescribing pattern.