Potential Drug-Drug Interactions among Prescribed Drugs in Paediatric Outpatients Department of a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Objective: To evaluate prevalence, types and severity of drug-drug interactions in paediatric outpatient department. Methods: An observational study was carried out in Shree Krishna Hospital (SKH), a tertiary care teaching hospital after obtaining Institutional Ethics Committee approval. In SKH outpatient prescriptions are uploaded on software “Solace”, and these online prescriptions were collected from IT department. Potential Drug-drug interactions (pDDIs) were identified by using Medscape drug interaction checker. The prescriptions were analysed for demographic characteristics, medical and detailed drug history. Drug-drug interactions (DDIs) were evaluated for total numbers, types and severity of DDIs. Result: Total 300 prescriptions with mean age 6.33 ± 5.24 years were analysed. Total 96 pDDIs were recorded. The prevalence of pDDI was 16%. Most common pDDI was Valproic acid + Acetaminophen. There were 61 (63.54%) DDIs of pharmacokinetic, 24 (25%) pharmacodynamic and 11 (11.46%) had an unknown mechanism. Out of all interactions, 41 (42.71%) were of minor, 48 (50%) were of moderate and 07 (7.29%) were of severe in nature. The number of drugs prescribed and the occurrence of DDIs were significantly associated. (p < 0.001).