Languluri Reddenna

Asthma creates a substantial burden on individuals and families as it is more often under-diagnosed and under-treated. India has an estimated 15-20 million asthmatics. Recognizing the signs and symptoms of asthma is important so that treatment and other interventions can begin early. Prospective observational study was conducted in the department of general medicine, RIMS, Kadapa for the period of 6 months aimed to assess the prevalence, risk factors and treatment in asthmatic patients. Patients were enrolled into the study on the basis of inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of 122 asthma diagnosed patients were recruited under the inclusion criteria. Our study establishes that the prevalence of bronchial asthma was more in males 79 (64.75%) than in females 43 (35.25 %). The prevalence rate of our study was 20.71 %. Our study found that most patients (35.25%) are using multiple drug therapy, followed by triple combination therapy (33.61%). Our study concluded that the asthma has low incidence and prevalence rate among the total respiratory diseases patients admitted in the hospital with the most predominant risk factors as dust, smoke and climate variation. Most patients have used multiple drug therapy for treatment due to severity of disease.

Errors resulting in patient injury and death are occurring in hospitals at significantly high and unacceptable numbers. Evidence from a number of sources over several decades indicates that a substantial number of patients suffer iatrogenic injuries while in hospital. The main aims of this study was to detect, identify and document the onset, underlying cause, type of medication errors and assess the severity of medication errors in the outpatient departments of a south Indian hospital. A prospective observational study was conducted at outpatient departments of general medicine, surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, orthopedics in Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Kadapa for the period of 6 months. The study was approved by the Institutional Ethical Committee, RIMS, Kadapa. Approximately, a total of 1296 medications were prescribed in 390 cases, and the average number of medications prescribed per patient was found to be 3.37.The present study showed a high incidence of medication errors in females (73%) over males and (27.50%) of medication errors in patients between 13-30yrs.The present study showed that prescribing errors 347(96.38%) was the most common among the medication errorsMajority of errors encountered in Anti-microbial agents 84 (23.33%). Severity level assessment of medication errors revealed that majority of errors (84.99%) were fallen under the category-B, C&D (Error, No Harm). A clinical pharmacist can play a major role in this situation appears to be a strong intervention and early detection and prevention of medication errors and thus can improve the quality of care to the patients. Key words:Clinical pharmacist, evaluation, medication errors