Abstract

TO ASSESS THE DRUG UTILIZATION PATTERN AND TO ANALYZE PHARMACOECONOMICS FOR GERIATRICS IN-PATIENT IN MEDICINE DEPARTMENT OF TERTIARY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL

Gurudeo N. Singh* Neeraj Kumar and Prashant Mathur

ABSTRACT

The world is aging fast and the word Geriatric refers to provide medical care to the persons of age 60 years or above. Drug utilization study on geriatric population is important since this population is neglected in the clinical trials. The aim of this study was to assess the drug utilization pattern among elderly peoples in term of WHO core prescribing indicators and to evaluate the treatment cost. This was the prospective cross-sectional study conducted at medicine department. Total of 175 prescriptions from inpatient medicine department was collected and evaluated. Among 175 patients the percentage of male (61.72%) is more and 31.42% patients was in age group of 71-75 years. Cardiovascular diseases (28%) were most common reason for hospitalization, followed by respiratory disorders (20.57%). Hypertension (25.72%) was most commonly diagnosed disease, followed by diabetes mellitus (22.2%) and COPD (14.28%). The most common co-morbidity was found to be HTN & DM. More than 3 co-morbidities were found in 79 patients. Cardiovascular drugs (22.17%) was most frequently prescribed drug followed by gastrointestinal drugs (15.30%). Among individual drugs pantoprazole (A02BC02) was most commonly prescribed drugs. Total of 1581 drugs were prescribed with an average of 9.03 drugs per prescription. Only 9.63% drugs were prescribed by generic name. Antimicrobials were prescribe in 146 prescriptions, among them ceftriaxone (J01DD04) was frequently prescribed. Polypharmacy was high which is generally unavoidable. The prescription by generic name is very low, and there is a need to encourage to prescribers to prescribe the drugs by generic name and this can eliminate the medication errors.

Keywords: Drug Utilization; Geriatrics; Polypharmacy; Co-morbidity; WHO-ATC/DDD.