Drug Utilization Evaluation among the Patients with Renal Disease In a Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Aim: The main aim of this study was to conduct drug utilization evaluation among the patients with renal disease in a tertiary care hospital.
Materials and Methods: An observational study was conducted among 102 patients for a period of six months in a tertiary care teaching hospital. Both male and female genders with renal diseases undergoing pharmacological therapy who were aged between 20-70 years were included in this study. Pregnant and lactating women and patients with incomplete laboratory data were excluded from this study. Results: Out of 102 patients included in this study, 54.9% (n=56) were male and 45.1% (n=46) were female. In this study, antibiotics (17.3%) were prescribed mostly and anti-fungals (1.9%) were found to be less prescribed. Among the antibiotics used, combination of Piperacillin + ?-lactamase inhibitors were prescribed mostly followed by combination of Cephalosporins + ?-lactamase inhibitors and Aminoglycosides were prescribed leastly. Conclusion: Drug utilization evaluation plays a major role to evaluate and improve drug use especially in a country like India, where illiteracy, poverty, different medicine system practices, dispensing without prescription, predominance in medical and marketing field and lack of drug information is evident. It is critical that standard guidelines in the therapeutic management to be developed and adopted that will help to prescribe the medication based on the evidence, hence improves the overall quality of drug use and ensures betterment of patients.