Drug utilization patterns of antibiotics in outpatient department of educare dental hospital at Malappuram, Kerala, India

Abstract

Background: Drug utilization studies aims to evaluate factors related to the prescribing, dispensing, administering and taking of medication, and its associated events. Antibiotic prescription by dental practitioners has an important impact on the rate of general antibiotic prescription use, and an attempt has been made to establish a surveillance system for the monitoring and control of the use of these drugs.Methods: Retrospective record-based study was conducted at outpatient department at Educare Dental College and Hospital, Chattipparamba, Malappuram, Kerala. About 2802 prescriptions were screened, drugs prescribed were noted, tabulated and analysed.Results: Total no. of prescriptions 2802, total no. of antibiotics prescribed 2916, average no of antibiotics per prescription 1.04. Out of antibiotics prescribed 72% were monotherapy and 28% were fixed dose combination. Among antibiotics beta lactam antibiotics were commonly prescribed followed by nitroimidazoles and macrolides.Conclusions: The study was conducted to analyze the drug utilization pattern in outpatient department at dental hospital. Most of prescription were rational, both monotherapy and polypharmacy were practiced. Safer drug with less adverse effect profile were considered. Among the antibiotic amoxicillin was the commonest.

Untitled

“…The average number of drugs per encounter was comparable to WHO standard value in the present study, indicating the absence of polypharmacy and risk of drug-drug interactions similarly to one Indian study but lower than the reporting from other studies 14,24,25 . Generic drug prescriptions in the present study were lower than the WHO standard value (100%), and slightly more than onethird of the branded drugs were prescribed to the patients, which is lower than the branded drug prescriptions reported by Fader and his coinvestigator from their study conducted in Nigeria 4 .…”

“…An attempt was made to assess the drug prescribing pattern of the dentists among the patients visited to the out-patient clinic of the Faculty of Dentistry. The present study found the mean age of the patients affected with dental disorders as similar as one Indian study 6 with a high proportion of female patients who visited the dental clinic 4,13,14 but opposite to the findings reported by Priyanka and her associates 6 . More female patients with dental problems in the present study could be due to their different salivary composition and flow rate; hormonal fluctuations; gender-based dietary habits; genetic makeup; reproductive history, and social life 18 .…”

“…The commonest therapeutic class of drug prescribed as monotherapy to the patients for pain and inflammation was NSAIDs followed by antimicrobials for surgical site and post-operative bacterial infections 21,6 . The most common NSAIDs and antimicrobials prescribed were diclofenac and amoxicillin, respectively 12,14,22,23 in the present study, whereas chlorhexidine mouthwash and paracetamol followed by ibuprofen and amoxicillin/clavulanate were the commonest drugs reported from the study conducted in Oman 19 . Most drugs were prescribed either in tablet or capsule dosage forms for 3 to 5 days treatment with twice to thrice daily administration 22,23 .…”

“…Rational use of antibiotics is essential in dental practice to ensure maximum efficacy and minimum adverse effects and resistance. A study conducted in India reported half of the encounters with an antibiotic prescription 14 in out-patient dental clinic, whereas the USA-based study highlighted the antibiotic prophylaxis in the majority of the patients undergoing dental procedures to prevent surgical site and postoperative infections 28 .…”