Drug use in children hospitalized with cardio-rheumatologic diseases in Andijan, Uzbekistan: a cross-sectional descriptive study

Abstract

BackgroundNo studies have been conducted on rational drug use among children in Uzbekistan. This study aimed to analyze drug uses based on pharmaco-epidemiologic (PE) data from Regional Children’s Multi-Profile Medical Centre (RCMPMC) in Andijan, Uzbekistan. Our study assessed drug usage in children with cardiovascular (CV) diseases, without intervening in the treatment processes or in the course of the diseases.MethodsSubjects were 853 children aged 0 to 180 months (median age, 60 months; inter-quartile range, 24–108 months) who were hospitalized in the department of Cardiology and Rheumatology in RCMPMC from January to December, 2013 and were prescribed one or more drugs during hospitalization. Drugs used for a different disease or medical condition, given in a different way and/or given in a different dose were analyzed and considered to be irrational drugs.ResultsThe most commonly used medications among 10 drug groups prescribed by the doctors of RCMPMC were as follows: anti-arrhythmic (aspartic acid - 54.0 %), glycosides (digoxin - 44.0 %), diuretics (furosemide - 34.0 %), vitamins (ascorbic acid - 25.0 %), steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (prednisolone - 19.0 %), non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (diclofenac - 17.0 %), antibiotics (amoxicillin - 16.0 %), non-steroid anabolic drugs (potassium orotas - 14.0 %) and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (captopril - 11.0 %).ConclusionsThe study found that irrational drug schemes were quite frequent among pediatric CV patients and they are most frequent in children aged 2–3 years and younger.

Prescribing Pattern of Pediatric Cardiologists during Clinical Pharmacist Intervention versus Routine Practice: First Comparative Study in Palestine

“…Compared with the routine practice stage, the mean number of drugs prescribed per patient in the intervention stage was significantly lower (mean: 5.98 S1versus 6.87 S0; P=0.043).However, this polypharmacy. A similar result was observed in a study performed on children admitted to the cardiovascular ward in Uzbekistan (Ganieva et al, 2016). Contrastingly, fewer drugs were prescribed to children in Sierra Leone (Cole et al, 2015), Ethiopia (Teni et al, 2014), Saudi Arabia (GUPTA et al, 2013, and Nigeria (Oshikoya et al, 2006).…”

“…Therefore, there is a need to provide appropriate treatment through surgery and rational pharmacotherapy (Ganieva et al, 2016).…”

“…Limited reports have been published on prescribing patterns in pediatric patients, particularly in cardiology. Many of these articles were retrospective (Cole et al, 2015;Summoro et al, 2015), performed on an outpatient basis (Ahmed, Thomas et al, 2014;Summoro et al, 2015) , and descried only the prescribing pattern without the participation of clinical pharmacists in the care team (Ganieva et al, 2016;Tefera et al, 2019), and most relevant adults (Tefera et al, 2019;Mamo and Alemu, 2020).…”