European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

DRUG UTILIZATION EVALUATION ON ANTIEPILEPTIC DRUGS IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Sumaiya Tabassum*, Mohammed Safi ur Rahman, Abul Khair Khan, Mariya Fatima, Zehra Fatima,
Uzma Samreen, Dr. BSV Raju

ABSTRACT

Background: Newer antiepileptic drugs are becoming available now and how these drugs are utilized is very interesting to see. Problems in antiepileptic therapy like use of poly-therapy, adverse drug reactions, drug interactions, lack of adherence to medications etc., can be identified and resolved by clinical pharmacist. Considering all these facts we started study on drug utilization of antiepileptic drugs in tertiary care hospital. Materials and Methods: Prospective observational study of 7 months duration from September 2019 to March 2020 was carried out after human ethics research committee approval. All in-patients prescribed with anti-epileptic drugs in Pediatric & General medicine department were selected. Data were collected in customized data collection form after taking patient consent and also from patient case sheets/prescriptions. Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 questionnaire was used to assess the adherence at baseline. Data were measured in percentage and frequency using descriptive statistics. Microsoft office was used to summarize the analysis of data. Results: A total of 120 patients enrolled to study where 209 antiepileptic drugs were prescribed. Females (58%) and patients with age group of 0-18 years (58.33%) were more exposed to these drugs. 80% of diagnosis was epilepsy without any co-morbidity. Prescription pattern of drugs showed that Phenytoin (34.44%) was the most common drug used either as single or in combination with other drugs to treat several of indication. At maximum 4 antiepileptic drugs were seen in one prescription introducing poly-therapy (64.16%). We have seen very less (3.82%) prescriptions for newer compared to older generation anti-epileptics. Among total 82(68.3%) drug interactions which were identified, 43.9% were severe, 39.02% were mild and 17.073% were moderate ones. We have also seen 66.66% of patient were having poor medication adherence score at baseline. We counselled these patients. All interventions were accepted by physician. Conclusion: Very less new antiepileptic drugs were used with high evidence of poly-therapy. Phenytoin was the most commonly prescribed drug. Clinical pharmacist mediated services helped to identify and reduce drug therapy related problems.

Keywords: Anti-epileptics drug, prescribing pattern, poly-therapy, drug interaction.