Identification and Evaluation of Drug Related Problems in Medicine Ward at a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Drugs play a dual role in patients. They are intended to cure, prevent or diagnosesigns or symptoms of a disease and on the same side its improper use can cause drugrelated problems which lead to increased morbidity and mortality. A pharmacistin a hospital had a vital role to monitor the physician prescribed prescriptions fordrug related problems (DRP’s). Objectives: To identify the drug related problems like ADR’s, Drug Interactions(DI), Low dose (LD), High dose (HD), Treatment without indication (TWI)andUntreated indication (UI). To identify the patient demographic details. Materials and methods: ThePresent study is an observational prospective study done in a tertiary care hospital for a period of six months. Individual patient data withprescription content is collected every day in Medicinedepartment in a suitable data collection form. Ethical clearance is obtained fromthe ethical committee before the study commence. Results: In the total datacollection of 393 cases, 202 (51.3%) were males and 191 (48.6%) were females in which 388 DRP’s were found. In that 30 ADR’s, 239 DI, 27TWI, 47 UI, 20 HD, 25 LD are identified. Polypharmacy is also one of thereasons for drug related problems in the patients. Conclusion: Drug relatedproblems are one of the major problems seen in the hospital. The study suggests that the pharmacists and physicians need to work together to identify and resolve drug relatedproblems. Additional controlled studies are required to measure the effect of thisservice on health outcomes.