Evaluation of drug-drug interactions among dental prescriptions at different clinical settings of Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Introduction: Drug plays a fundamental role in disease prevention and ultimately promotes healthy society. Inappropriate prescribing traditions are not only goes toward useless & unsafe treatment but also prolongation of illness and distress the patient and increased economic burden. Therefore evaluation of drug-drug interactions are considered a necessary starting in forming an effective drug utilization stewardship program with the leading objectives of upgrade the efficacy of treatment and reducing the microbial resistance; this study can also be helped as a pharmaco-epidemiological extent for carrying out of a national preventive drug policy. Objectives: To assess Drug-Drug interactions among dental prescriptions at different clinical settings of Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan. Study Design: A descriptive observational study. Settings: A hospital based study was conducted in different clinical settings of Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan. Period: Six months from January to June 2018 according to study criteria. Materials and Methods: The Sample size is 500 prescriptions were collected randomly in six months from January to June 2018 according to study criteria. A structured data form was used for collecting demographics, diagnosis, complications, present medications prescribed for each patient and find out number of prescriptions which shows drug-drug interactions and level of severity as well. MS Excel and descriptive statistics was used for find out the result of the study. Results: The current study finding shows that males have more prevalence i.e. 55.8% of dental problems compared to females (44.2%). Mostly patients were included in 51-60 age group (30.2%). 50.2% patients have pervious medication history and most common diagnosis was acute periapical infection (26.8%). Further mostly analgesics (26%) were prescribed followed by antibiotics (21.5%) with elevated body temperature (29.4%). Commonly six drugs per prescription prescribed (34.2%) least numbers of drugs prescribed per prescription is 2(8.2%). 30.6% prescriptions reported with drug-drug interaction in which 26.8% were prescribed in acute periapical infections. More frequently was observed between Glimepiride – Levofloxacin (25.5%) followed by levofloxacin-prednisolone (24.8%). Conclusion: It was concluded that the frequency of drug-drug interactions in prescriptions by dentist in private dental clinics of Sialkot is high but majority of drug interactions with other drugs were found to be of significant minor occurring at pharmacodynamics level.