A Study on Potential Drug - Drug Interactions in Medicine Department of a Multi Specialty Teaching Hospital

Abstract

Aim of study: Drug-drug interaction (DDI) occurs when two or more drugs are simultaneously administered, where the effect of one drug is altered by the concomitant use of another drug. The prospective observational study aimed to assess the potential drug-drug interactions (pDDIs) in general medicine department of a multispecialty teaching hospital. Material & Methods: Data of all the patients admitted in the general medicine department was collected and analyzed for drug-drug interactions by using drug information resources such as "Thomson Reuters MICROMEDEX® 2.0 DRUGDEX and drugs.com. Results: A total of 150 case records were reviewed, 116 (77.33%) cases were identified with 273 potential drug-drug interactions during the study period. It was observed that out of the 273 DDIs identified, majority 68.13% of the interactions were moderate in severity followed by 19.78% were minor and 12.08% were major. The categorization of onset of drug-drug interactions revealed that 53.47% were categorized as 'not specified' and the documentation status of drugdrug interactions showed that 56.77% were 'fair' in nature. Conclusion: The study highlights the need of regular monitoring of drug therapy in identifying and preventing the medications that have the potential to cause drug-drug interactions thereby minimizing the undesirable outcomes in drug therapy and improving the quality of care.

Potential drug-drug interactions among elderly in-patients with cardiac illness at a tertiary care centre

“…Study revealed very high prevalence of drug-drug interactions in the cardiac in-patients as supported by other studies. [4][5][6][7] The high prevalence may be due to presence of various risk factors in hospitalized patients. Elderly age group, cardiac illness and associated multiple co-morbidities which in turn lead to polypharmacy, may result into development of drug-drug interactions.…”

“…8 Majority of drug interactions reported in the study were of moderate to major severity as also seen in various other studies. 6,7 (Table 2). Also, the documentation status varied from fair to good evidence.…”