1Associate Professor, Dept. of Pharmacology, Vinayaka Missions Medical College & Hospital, Puducherry
3Assistant Professor, Guntur Medical College, Andhra Pradesh
4Assistant Professor, Dept. of Pharmacology, Vinayaka Missions Medical College & Hospital, Puducherry
5Professor, Dept. of Dermatology, Vinayaka Missions Medical College & Hospital, Puducherry
*Corresponding Author: Email: kolasanibhanu@yahoo.co.in
Online published on 10 October, 2016.
The trends of prescribing drugs in patients of psoriasis with an emphasis on WHO core prescribing indicators have never been studied previously in India. Hence the present study was planned to analyse the prescribing pattern of drugs and WHO core prescribing indicators among inpatients of psoriasis in dermatology department of our institute.
An observational prospective study was conducted in 75 inpatients of psoriasis pregnant women for a period one year. Each prescription was analyzed for patient's demographic variables, type of psoriasis, total number of drugs prescribed, various categories of drugs prescribed, percentage of individual drugs in each class, World Health Organization (WHO) core prescribing indicators and percentage of drugs prescribed by their dosage forms. Statistical analysis was primarily descriptive with values mainly expressed as percentages and absolute numbers.
Majority of the patients belonged to 30–40 age group and the most common type was plaque psoriasis (57.33%). Overall 317 medications were prescribed to a total of 75 patients among which antioxidant, vitamin and mineral preparations (32.40%) were the most commonly prescribed category followed by antihistamines (13.13%) and topical corticosteroids (12.57%). Methotrexate (4.19%) was the only immunosuppressant drug prescribed. Average number of drugs per prescription was 4.23%. Percentage of drugs prescribed by generic name was 36.91%. Percentage of encounters with antibiotic prescribed was 6.31% whereas injection prescribed was 1.89%. Percentage of drugs prescribed from National list of essential medicines (NLEM) was 59.10%. Tablet (57.14%) was the most commonly prescribed dosage form.
The study reveals inappropriately higher usage of multivitamin preparations, higher prevalence of polypharmacy and relatively under usage of topical antibiotics and emollient preparations. Measures to facilitate and encourage rational prescribing of drugs in psoriasis among the students and prescribers must be undertaken in order to derive the optimum benefit with least adverse effects.
Antioxidants, Corticosteroids, Dermatology, National list of essential medicines, Polypharmacy
