CORTICOSTERIOD;

FREQUENCY OF USE AND RELATED DRUG INTERACTIONS IN INDOOR PATIENTS

Abstract

Introduction: Indoor patients in hospitals frequently use corticosteriods for different indications. As the number of drugs in
prescriptions increases, the risk of drug-drug interactions increases. This study deals with the frequent use and drug-drug of
corticosteriods. Objective: The present study was designed to determine the frequency of use of corticosteriods in indoor patients and
the resulting drug-drug interactions. Study design: 270 Prescriptions of indoor patients from different wards of Aziz Bhatti Shahid
teaching hospital Gujrat were collected randomly over the period of three months. These prescriptions were subjected to a drug-drug
interaction software based analysis. The results were collected analysed and presented in the form of tables. Period: The patient charts
containing prescriptions included in this study were collected over the period of three months. Material and Method: The software named
THE MEDICAL LETTER ADVERSE DRUG INTERACTION PROGRAM was selected for finding the drug-drug interactions in randomly
selected indoor patient charts. Moreover, the frequency of use of corticosteriods was determined by simply counting the prescriptions
containing corticosteriods out of total prescriptions and its percentage was found. Results: 29.25% patient charts were including
corticosteriods in their prescriptions. Percentage of corticosteriod drug interactions found was 25.55%. Conclusions: Frequent use of
corticosteriods in indoor patients can increase the risk of drug-drug interactions that should be monitored regularly.