European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

ASSESSMENT OF POLYPHARMACY AND ASSOCIATED PROBLEMS IN CARDIO VASCULAR DISEASED PATIENTS IN A SECONDARY CARE HOSPITAL

Immanuel Jebastine*, Sudhakar. R, Hemalatha. S and Apollo James

ABSTRACT

Background: Polypharmacy is a major public health problem among the hospitalized patients. The prescription of multiple medications leads to polypharmacy, adverse drug reactions, drug-drug interactions and non-adherence to treatment. Objective: The present study was designed to analyze the polypharmacy in patients with cardiovascular disease and associated problems like drug-drug interactions, drug duplication and adverse drug reactions in patients prescribed with polypharmacy. Methodology: A prospective observational study was performed in secondary care hospital of cardiovascular department in Salem, Tamilnadu, India. Only patients prescribed with polypharmacy were included in our study. Results: A total of 140 cardiovascular patients were analyzed in which 65.72% of patients were male and 34.28% of patients were females. The major fraction 54% of the patients was in the age group of 61-80 years and 30% of the patients aged above 80 years. The prevalence of polypharmacy is more common in male 61.0% and 38.9% in females. In a study group 46.42% population has coronary artery disease and 13.57% had rheumatic heart disease. Polypharmacy was observed in almost all cases, wherein 14.29% were prescribed more than 16 drugs, 17.86% of patients were with 13-16 drugs, 35.71% of patients were with 9-12 drugs and 32.14% were with 5-8 drugs. Anti-coagulants are most commonly prescribed drugs 64.2% followed by 51.41% prescribed with anti-platelet drugs. Micromedix and Medscape drug interaction checker was used to analyze the drug interaction. A total of 32 potent drug interactions were found and 25 ADR were found during our study. Conclusion: Results of the study revealed that polypharmacy is a major cause for drug-drug interaction and adverse drug reactions in cardiovascular patients. The clinical pharmacist should address the valuable services to minimize drug-interactions and ADR due to polypharmacy.

Keywords: polypharmacy, drug-drug interaction, adverse drug interaction, drug duplications.