Aims: To evaluate the prescribing pattern among hypertensive patients and analysis these prescriptions to help in improving the quality of care provided.

Methodology: This was a prospective and observational study. Patients of both sex and all age groups those attended the outpatient department (OPD) were included in this study. Acute cerebrovascular accident, acute MI, acute left ventricular failure and pregnant women were excluded from this study.

Results: Out of 350 patients, 193 (55.14%) were male and 157 (44.85%) were female. The average number of drugs prescribed per prescription was 2.52 in our study with a range of 1 to 7. A maximum number of patients (40.86%) were received two antihypertensive drugs followed by single antihypertensive drug (34.85%).  CCB was the most common (39.14%) used antihypertensive drugs. Total 138 (39.42%) patients  were prescribed fixed-dose drug combination, among this Atenolol + amlodipine FDC was the most commonly used FDC( 40.28%)

Conclusion: Hypertension and its complications can be controlled by diet control, regular exercise,  medicines and by time to time follow up. Most commonly prescribed drugs were CCB in this study and ACE inhibitors was most commonly prescribed in diabetic patients. While most common prescribed antihypertensive drug in IHD patients was beta blockers.

Keywords: Prescription Pattern, Antihypertensive drugs, Calcium Channel Blocker, FDC.

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Dr Akhtar Ali

Resident, Department of Pharmacology, Dr. S.N. Medical College Jodhpur (Rajasthan), India

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