Prescribing patterns

To study the prescribing pattern of antidepressants and their outcome differences in the Psychiatric unit of a Tertiary care hospital. A prospective observational study was carried out in the psychiatry outpatient department (OPD) of Rajah Muthiah Medical College and Hospital. A total of 85 patients were enrolled for the study to investigate the prescribing pattern of antidepressants using a predesigned format out of which 82 of them completed the study successfully. Majority of subjects affected in our study were young adults within the age group of 19-38 years followed by age group 38-58 years Females suffered from depression more than their male counterparts. It was also found that married individuals (74.39%) suffered more from depression than unmarried people Bipolar affective disorder (85.9%) was the most common diagnosis in this study .Monotherapy was practiced more frequently than polytherapy with 2or more drugs and conventional drugs like SSRIs are more preferred than newer antidepressants in the hospital with Escitalopram being the most commonly prescribed drug. Females suffer from depression more than their male counterparts while the age of onset is almost same. Escitalopram, a newer drug belonging to SSRI, is the most frequently prescribed antidepressant whereas duloxetine is the preferred drug from newer antidepressant class (SNRIs & NDRIs combination). All the three major anti-depressants groups are equipotent at 2 months HDRS scoring.