Assessment of Drug use Pattern in Paediatric Department of a Tertiary Care Hospital

Background: Prescription analysis is an essential means to monitor drug use and ascertain the rationality of prescriptions. This study was conducted to assess the drug usage pattern and identify the possible drug-drug interaction in the paediatric ward of the tertiary care hospital. Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted in the paediatric department to analyse the prescriptions using WHO core prescribing indicators and also to identify the possible drug-drug interactions. The study was conducted for a period of 6 months. The drug therapy details were collected and documented in a specially designed data collection form. Descriptive statistics were applied to analyse the data. Results: Among 340 prescriptions studied, 1091 drugs were prescribed. The most commonly prescribed drug class was antibiotics (25.93%), followed by antipyretic and anti-inflammatory agents (16.68%). Acetaminophen was the frequently prescribed drug (14.57%), followed by amoxicillin-clavulanic acid (12.09%). The average number of drugs prescribed per prescription was 3.2. 24.11% of drugs were prescribed as generics. The percentage of antibiotics and injections prescribed was 68.52% and 25.58%, respectively. The percentage of drugs that are prescribed from EDL was 88.52%. One hundred forty-three drug interactions were identified from the prescriptions, of which the majority were found to be moderate in severity (86.01%). Conclusion: The study observed increased use of antibiotics when associated with WHO core prescribing indicators. It also observed a majority of moderate drug-drug interactions.