---

A prospective observational study of drug usage in paediatric inpatients at district teaching hospital

---

Original Article

Author Details : Rajeshwari, Nagarajaiah B.H, Thamanna P.S, Drupad H.S

Volume : 4, Issue : 4, Year : 2017

Article Page : 188-191

Suggest article by email

Get Permission

---

Abstract

Introduction: Aim of our study was to observe and analyse the prescribing pattern of drugs in hospitalised patients of paediatric department.
Materials and Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted over a period of one year, after getting approval from Institutional Ethics committee. A specially designed proforma was used to collect the data from inpatients of paediatric ward of a tertiary care hospital. Inpatients with age group of 0 – 14 years were included in the study.
Results: Out of 1050 patients, 471 were below the age group of one year, 220 patients were between 1-5 years and 359 patients were above the age of 5 years. The percentage of patients with antibiotic prescribed was 92.1%. Among the antibiotics, amikacin (483) was most commonly prescribed followed by cefotaxime (414) and ceftriaxone (301). Paracetamol was used as analgesic and antipyretic (45.5%) in the majority of the patients. The average number of drugs prescribed per patient was 5.7. In the majority of patients parenteral formulations were used either in the form of antibiotics or IV fluids (98.2%). Out of 96 different drugs, 57 (59.3%) drugs were prescribed by generic name. About 58.3% of drugs were prescribed from Essential Medicines WHO Model List (2015).
Conclusion: Drug utilization studies are powerful exploratory tools to ascertain the role of drugs in society and create sound socio-medical and health economic basis for health care decision making. Continuous medical education with a focus on rational drug use and evidence based medicine should form part of the program in the hospital.

Keywords: Drug utilization studies, Paediatric inpatients, WHO prescribing indicators

How to cite : Rajeshwari, B.h N, P.s T, H.s D, A prospective observational study of drug usage in paediatric inpatients at district teaching hospital. Indian J Pharm Pharmacol 2017;4(4):188-191

This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.