An evaluation of fixed dose combinations and it’s practices at medicine department of tertiary care hospital, Nepal

Abstract

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> A large proportion of fixed dose combinations (FDCs) are manufactured and used widely in Nepal. This study aimed to evaluate the FDCs and its utilization in medicine department of tertiary care hospital.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> A cross-sectional study was conducted for 50 days among admitted patients in the medicine department of tertiary care hospital, Nepal. A predesigned form was used to collect the data at the time of patient discharge. Only the oral FDCs were selected for study.<strong> </strong>Microsoft Excel 2007 was used for statistical analysis and data were presented as number and percentage in tabulated and figure forms. </p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> Oral FDCs were used in 27.08% of admitted patients. A total of 295 FDCs were prescribed in 208 patients with 44 FDC items in 58 different brand names. Categorically, the most commonly used FDCs were of analgesics (34.24%) followed by antibiotics (25.76%) and vitamin supplements (22.71%). The 27.27% of FDCs prescribed contain more than two active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) up to nine and the highest number of APIs were found in vitamin supplements. All FDCs were prescribed in the brand names. The very few 2.27% and 4.55% of FDCs were prescribed from the essential medicine list of Nepal and world health organization, respectively.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> The use of FDCs listed in essential medicine list was very poor. Similarly, generic prescribing was also zero. The regulatory body must study the rationality of FDC before production, marketing, importing, and utilization in hospital.</p>