Background: The aim of the study was to evaluate the antidepressant effect of opioid analgesic tramadol using forced swim test and tail suspension test models.Methods: The antidepressant effect was assessed by recording the immobility time in Forced swim test (FST) and Tail suspension test (TST). The mice were randomly divided into five groups. Mice belonging to group I was given normal saline (0.1ml/kg) which acted as control. Group II received imipramine (15mg/kg) considered as the standard drug tramadol was given in graded dose (10, 20 and 40 mg/kg) to mice of groups III, IV, V respectively. All drugs were administered intraperitoneally for seven successive days; test was done on 7th day.Results: Tramadol and Imipramine showed antidepressant activity when compared to control. There is dose dependent increase in antidepressant activity of tramadol. The antidepressant activity of imipramine was significantly (P<0.05) more than tramadol at dose 10 and 20 mg/kg but antidepressant activity with tramadol 40mg/kg was comparable to imipramine treated mice.Conclusions: The results of this study indicated the presence of antidepressant activity of tramadol at 40mg/kg.
Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is the clinical practice of performing drug assays and interpreting results to maintain constant therapeutic concentrations in patients' bloodstream. Conventional TDM was started way back in the 1960s and served to optimise pharmacotherapy by maximising therapeutic efficacy by evaluating efficacy failure and monitoring drug compliance, while minimising adverse events, in drugs with a narrow therapeutic range. Currently, the scope of TDM has been extended to additional indications which are of importance to India. Apart from the conventional indications, TDM can also help combat drug resistance amongst patients treated with antimicrobials, including anti-tubercular drugs and critically ill patients with compromised pharmacokinetics. TDM is also indicated for patients on antiretroviral drugs under specific clinical scenarios and is of high importance to India. Target concentration intervention (TCI) and apriori TDM (by merging TDM with pharmacogenomics) are emerging fields explored in developed nations. The authors sought to assess the evolution of TDM in India and evaluate the potential impact of newer indications in rationalising pharmacotherapy. In the mid-1980s, TDM was presented to India.Despite showing some initial progress, its use is limited to conventional indications.Its utility is also challenged by cost and higher reliance on conventional prescribing practices. However, the newer indications such as antimicrobial resistance, tuberculosis and HIV, with their high prevalence in developing nations, present an opportunity for the growth of TDM in these countries. Indian clinician's awareness and buoyant demands alongside expert contributions from clinical pharmacologists could widen its scope.
Background: Even though the role of spontaneous reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) is well established in pharmacovigilance, it is not followed in the practice and a large number of ADRs goes unreported. In our institute, almost all of the ADR reported to the department of pharmacology are through either the faculty members or the residents and very few by the nurses and interns.Methods: The current survey was thus conducted to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of nursing students and interns. It is expected that the results should help us to designs specific activities to improve ADR reporting. The study was a questionnaire based survey to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) of the interns (n=74) and nursing students (n=108) regarding ADR reporting and pharmacovigilance in this tertiary care centre.Results: More interns gave correct responses to knowledge based and attitude based questions of pharmacovigilance compared to the nursing students. On the other hand, more nursing students came across ADRs in the patients compared to interns. Even though 93.24% interns responded to have got training on “how to report ADRs”, only 6.76% ever reported ADR to pharmacovigilance centre.Conclusions: Proper training on pharmacovigilance, with easy way for reporting ADRs would be a useful step in improving pharmacovigilance status in nursing students and interns.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.