Potential drug-drug interactions and their associated factors in hospitalized COVID-19 patients with comorbidities

Background.Hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and comorbidities receive more complex drug therapy. This increases the probability of potential drug-drug interactions (pDDIs). Studies on pDDIs in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in countries with limited resources like Indonesia during a later period of the disease are still limited.This study aims to identify the pattern of pDDIs in hospitalized COVID-19 patients with comorbidities and the associated factors, especially in the second wave of the disease in Indonesia.Methods. This study was a longitudinal-retrospective study observing hospitalized COVID-19 patients with comorbidities using medical record data in June 3 August 2021 at a public hospital in a region in Indonesia. pDDIs were identiûed using Lexicomp® application. Data were analyzed descriptively. Factors associated with important potential drug-drug interactions were analyzed in multivariate logistic regression model.Results.A total of 258 patients met the inclusion criteria with a mean age of 56.99 ± 11.94 years. Diabetes mellitus was the most comorbidity experienced by 58.14% patients. More than 70% patients had one comorbid and the average of drugs given was 9.55 ± 2.71 items per patient. Type D pDDIs which required modiûcation of therapeutic regimens amounted to 21.55% of the total interactions. Only number of drugs was signiûcantly and independently associated with type D pDDIs (adjusted odds ratio 1.47 [1.23 3 1.75, p < 0.01]).Conclusion.The drugs involved in the pDDIs in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and comorbidities may be diûerent between the disease periods, hospital settings, or countries.This study was small, single center, and of short duration. However, it may give a glimpse of important pDDIs during the delta variant of COVID-19 in a similar limited-resource setting. Further studies are needed to conûrm the clinical signiûcance of these pDDIs