A STUDY ON THE PRESCRIBING PATTERN OF ANTI-DIABETIC DRUGS IN A COMMUNITY CLINIC IN TELANGANA STATE

Objectives: There are many variations in prescribing patterns of Diabetes mellitus with hypertension which requires lifelong treatment as enormously increased the burden of chronic diseases and needs much care while choosing drugs. In a tertiary care Centre, prescribing pattern are powerful tools to ascertain the role of drugs in society. Hence, there is a need for appropriate, safe, effective and economical study to find out the patterns of drug therapy among diabetic hypertensive patients with other complications.Methods: Retrospective, randomized and non-interventional study design was conducted from September 2014 to November 2014 at a Community Clinic in Telangana State. The collected data are thoroughly analyzed and prescriptions were checked for appropriateness. For easy sorting all data obtained were entered into Microsoft Excel 2000 and cross-checked for accuracy. The data collected were analyzed to obtain averages, percentages and standard deviations. The data were grouped on the bases of age, gender, fasting blood glucose, blood pressure, co morbidities, various classes of drugs and analyzed for significance.Results: A total of 109 patients were included in this two months study. All the patients had Type 2 diabetes, while 18 patients also had Hypertension (on treatment). All the patients were on treatment for Type 2 Diabetes. The mean fasting Blood sugar was 119.27±40.34 mg/dl, while the mean post-prandial blood sugar was 212.78±67.35 mg/dl. The average number of OHAs per prescription was 1.99±0.54. About 19.26% of the patients were on monotherapy with Metformin, while all the other patients received a combination of oral hypoglycemic agents. Insulin was used in 2.75% of the patients. Among combinations, the most commonly used combination was glibenclamide and metformin 41.2%.Conclusion: Metformin is the drug of choice and glibenclamide is the most preferred combination with Metformin. Insulin was not preferred as monotherapy. Despite combination therapy, the post-prandial glucose levels were not in range–suggesting either poor patient compliance or inadequate dosing/inappropriate therapy. In addition to drugs, the services of a clinical pharmacist might be helpful in these patients.Â