Quality of life

Antibiotics are the most commonly prescribed drugs in hospitals. In developed countries, around 30% of the hospitalized patients are treated with antibiotics. Rational uses of drugs have attained more significance in present days in terms of medical, socio economical and legal aspects [1]. Pharmacists play a vital role in promoting the rational use of medicines. Medicines (drugs) cannot be used rationally unless all health care professionals involved in the pharmaceutical supply chain has access to know the complete information therapeutic indications of the drugs This study was carried out to collect patient’s relevant demographic information which includes Age, Sex, Occupation, Date of admission, Date of discharge, History of present illness, past medical history, Diagnosis and prescription drugs [2]. 1) The aim of the research is to study and to determine the prescribing patterns of antibiotics and use of antibiotic (Rational / Irrational) in a tertiary care hospital along with its beneficial and adverse outcomes. 2) Intervene strategies from pharmacist perspective to promote rational use of antibiotics to improve therapeutic outcomes in patients thereby improving quality of life (QOL) of patients [3]. The study was carried at Shadan Institute of Medical Sciences, Shadan Hospital, Hyderabad. Antibiotics are prescribed based on symptoms and laboratory investigations. Antibiotics are indicated for the treatment of bacteriologically proven infections and non-bacteriologically proven infections. It is a single centered, prospective observational study. Subjects of both genders who indicated with antibiotic therapy are taken into consideration and patients who had co morbid pathological conditions also included. Pediatrics, pregnant women and surgical cases were excluded from the study [4].175 patients were collected; 75 were male and 100 were female. Total numbers of antibiotics prescribed are 260. Median duration of hospitalization was 5 days. The most common prescribed antibiotics were Ceftriaxone, Ciprofloxacin, Azithromycin, Amoxicillin+Clavulanic acid, Amikacin & Doxycycline. On assessing the results of study, it was found that prescribed 260 antibiotics accounted for 100%, ceftriaxone indicated was 35% followed by ciprofloxacin was 10 % and azithromycin was 6%. Irrational prescriptions becoming a serious problem in the General medicine department. For the achievement of Rational use of antibiotic to treat infections caused by microorganisms, selection the appropriate antibiotic partly depends on symptoms suffered by the patients. Awareness programs should be launched and seminars should be conducted so as to minimize problems which are common at ward level [5]. News Letters and Drug bulletins about the rational use of antibiotics should be released periodically. Cost effective prescription should be encouraged. Formulation of a policy for hospital antibiotic use and educational programs especially for junior doctors also required.

The aim and Objectives of the study was to identify the impact of clinical pharmacists counselling on quality of life among cancer patients, To evaluate the life style of cancer patients before and after their cancer diagnosis and assess the relation of lifestyle with occurrence of cancer. Cancer patients were enrolled and categorized into intervention and control group by block randomization. Intervention group received information leaflets, face to face counselling during study period where as the control group received the conventional care only. The Quality of Life (QoL) of patients was assessed by European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QLQ-C30 questionnaire at baseline and at the final follow up. life style pattern is assessed by closed ended questions. 130 subjects (65 patients in the intervention and 65 in the control) were enrolled their quality of life was assessed. In the intervention group, quality of life at baseline was 51.17+13.81. After counselling the intervention group QoL was 67.30+7.98. The paired‘t’ test report revealed that there was a difference in quality of life (p

Diabetic neuropathy has been reported as the most common complication of Diabetes mellitus. The antiepileptic agents along with the neurotrophic agents have been widely used for diabetic neuropathy. The aim of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of the mostly prescribing Pregabalin and Gabapentin with methylcobalamin. It was a prospective study including 200 patients considering 100 in each group. The primary outcome measure was the neuropathic pain scale. Secondary measure included the RAND36 measuring quality of life. Among the total cases collected, females were the highly affected population and patients under the age group of 60-69 years were highly prevalent. The majority of the patients had numbness and aching type of pain distributed in the lower extremities involving foot, toes,hip, leg etc. Hyperglycemia was considered as the major cause of DN. For the primary outcome variable, change in the NPS score was considered. The mean pain score at baseline was almost similar between treatment groups. Among both groups pain score was reduced at the end of the study indicating the pain relieving effect of both therapy. The change in QoL from baseline to the final week was measured in the RAND36 questionnaire. Significant improvement in QoL was reported in both treatment groups. The difference in this improvement among both groups shows a discrepancy. It may be due to the adverse reactions of the therapy. These discrepancies leave us with an equivocal result with regard to the efficacy of treatment groups in improving the QoL.