Abstract

Pradnya Deolekar*, Pramila Yadav, Sandesh Deolekar and Prathmesh S. Deolekar

ABSTRACT

Background: Diabetes has gradually emerged as one of the most serious public health problems in our country. This underlines the need for timely disease detection and decisive therapeutic intervention. Poor glycaemic control in diabetes mellitus can be prevented by using rational use of oral hypoglycaemic agents (OHA). Rational use of the drugs in populations can be effectively evaluated using drug utilization studies. Objective: To determine the drug utilization pattern of antidiabetic agents in a tertiary care teaching hospital. Materials and Methods: This study was a hospital based cross sectional study conducted in the diabetes clinic of tertiary care hospital. All the relevant data were collected and drug utilization pattern of antidiabetic agents was determined among 285 Type II diabetic patients. Results: Average number of drugs per prescription was found to be 2.43. 86 (18.14%) of the drugs were prescribed by generic name. Majority (64.56%) of the patients were on combination therapy and 35.43% of patients were on antidiabetic monotherapy. Biguanides accounted for (51.47%) of all the prescribed drugs followed by sulfonylureas (20.25%), DPP4 inhibitors (8.22%) and oral antidiabetic combination therapy. Encounter with parenteral preparation (injection) was 15.82% Encounter with an antibiotic was 19 (8.63%) Drugs prescribed from national essential drug list were 64.34%. Conclusion: Metformin was the most frequently prescribed drug in diabetes. Prescription by Brand name is a matter of concern.