drugs

One of the important fundamental human rights is access to health care. Various governments have shown international agreements about this right. Disease management and prevention is mainly through drugs. Complete information about the drugs is given in World Health Organization (WHO) formularies. Aim of the study was to develop a hospital formulary in a tertiary care hospital. Drug list comprising of 450 drugs was collected from hospital pharmacy. After scrutinizing the list for unutilized and banned drugs, a total of 423 drugs were selected to prepare monographs for hospital formulary. The hospital formulary book was distributed to the doctors, nursing staff and pharmacy to avoid medication administrative errors and also to provide ease of reference. The formulary was also designed in a way to help the patients receive drugs economically by including the high quality drugs of affordable brands. Results showed that fixed dose combinations accounts for highest percentage of drugs in Varma hospital formulary i.e., 22.22% (n=94) whereas it is only 8.19% (n=28) in National formulary of India whereas blood products accounts least i.e., 1.89% (n=8) in Varma hospital formulary and 1.46% (n=5) in National formulary of India. Development of hospital formulary system helps in reducing the number of brands for the same drug, selecting the drugs at affordable cost with superior quality. On a whole, the formulary helps in providing quality treatment to the patient in a standardized way.

Most of pregnant women take prescription or non-prescription drugs during pregnancy. In general, unless absolutely necessary, drugs should not be used during pregnancy because it can affect the fetus .The aim of this study was to evaluate the patterns of drug prescriptions to pregnant women in tertiary care hospital. It was a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted at MediCiti Institute of Medical Sciences, a tertiary care hospital of Medchal, Hyderabad. Prescriptions given to outpatients and inpatients pregnant women attending the antenatal clinics were collected. A simple questionnaire was used to gather information. The drugs were classified according to the pharmacological class and their teratogenic potential. The most frequently prescribed drugs were oral iron, folic acid preparations, antacids, antibacterials and analgesics. Majority were in accordance with WHO criteria for rational use of drugs except for prescription by generic names. Average number of drugs per encounter was 3.5, most common route of administration was oral. Most commonly used drugs were iron, folic acid. Most common antibiotic prescribed was amoxicillin. Most common condition for which drugs were prescribed was cough, backache and fever. All the prescribed drugs were available in hospital pharmacy in sufficient quantities.