Assessment of prescription pattern among copd patients in departments of general medicine ward and pulmonology in tertiary care hospitals of Khammam region

Abstract

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a common preventable and treatable disease. It has been a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in industrialized and developing countries. Drug utilization research promotes the rational use of drugs and decreases adverse drug reactions in the population. The present study is aimed to analyze and evaluate the trends and patterns of prescribing drugs among COPD patients. A prospective observational study was conducted in 301 patients admitted in the general and pulmonary medicine departments over six months at a tertiary care hospital in Khammam region. Out of the 301 study population, male patients were more (81.39%). The majority of the patients were from the age group of 51-60 years (30.56%). Smoking was found to be more prominent in the study population (63.6%). Bronchodilators (46.90%) were mostly prescribed class of drugs in the management of COPD followed by Systemic Corticosteroids (20.60%), Antibiotics (19.09%) Most common co-morbidity was found to be Hypertension (19.85%). The study concludes that symptomatic treatment was given to COPD patients in the hospital. The prescribing pattern was found to be in concordance with the current GOLD guidelines in the management of COPD patients.