Assessment of Drug related problems Encountered in Patients with Psychiatric disorders in a Secondary Care Hospital.

Abstract

Introduction: Patients with psychiatric disorders receives multiple medications associated with their comorbid conditions and mental illness increasing the risk of drug related problems leading to frequent hospitalization, healthcare expenditure and reduced quality of life. Aim/Objective: To assess and evaluate the Drug Related Problems (DRPs) encountered in patients with psychiatric disorders in a Secondary Care Hospital in Ras Al-Khaimah. Methodology: A prospective observational study was carried out for a period of six months in the department of psychiatry of a secondary care teaching hospital. All the necessary details including the demographics, drug therapy and laboratory parameters were collected from the patient case records. The patient medication orders were reviewed and screened for any DRPs. The identified DRPs were documented and later evaluated to identify the types, frequency, class of drugs involved and for the level of clinical significance by using the descriptive statistics. Results: A total of 61 DRPs were identified from 50 patients. Male predominance was noted over females. DRPs were commonly seen in patients aged between 21-40 years of age. Schizophrenia (42%) was the most common psychiatric illness identified in the study. The most common DRPs was found to be drug-drug interaction (36.06%) followed by adverse drug reaction (27.86%) and medication non-adherence (24.59%). The level of significance of DRPs was found to be ‘minor’ significance in the grade. Conclusion: The study identifies the DRPs in patients with psychiatric illness and necessitates the need for a regular medication review which will help to rationalize the drug therapy, achieve better therapeutic outcomes and improved quality of patient care.

Drug‐related problems among hospitalized hypertensive and heart failure patients and physician acceptance of pharmacists' interventions at a teaching hospital in Ghana

“…DRPs were frequently identified during the study. This is consistent with the findings of other studies on cardiovascular and other hospitalized medical patients 20,25,27,29,31,35 . DRPs have been shown to be frequent in patients with cardiovascular disease 27,29,31,35 .…”

“…The majority of interventions were proposed at the physician level. Our findings are similar to those of other authors 31,35,48–51 . A prospective study of DRPs in hospitalized patients at a tertiary hospital by George et al reported prescriber‐level interventions by pharmacists in 41.4% of all interventions, representing the highest percentage 48 .…”

“…This is consistent with the findings of other studies on cardiovascular and other hospitalized medical patients 20,25,27,29,31,35 . DRPs have been shown to be frequent in patients with cardiovascular disease 27,29,31,35 . Movva et al reported a high occurrence of DRPs in cardiovascular patients in their study which classified DRPs based on the PCNE classification system 31 .…”

“…Our calculation was based on a study of cardiovascular admission trends in a tertiary hospital in Ghana over 12 years showing an average annual admission of 159 patients for heart failure with hypertension underlying most admissions 9 . We used a 39% prevalence of DRPs reported from a study of DRPs in hospitalized cardiovascular patients at a tertiary hospital 35 . The sample size was obtained using a Confidence level of 95% and confidence limit of 5% was 112.…”

“…A prospective study reported intervention acceptance of more than 90% by physicians 31 . Some studies in hospitalized medical patients have, however, reported lower acceptance of pharmacists interventions 35,38 . Studies in cardiovascular patients have reported varying acceptance rates of pharmacists interventions with some studies reporting acceptance rates of half to two‐thirds of interventions 35,38 …”