Abstract

Drug-drug interactions (DDIs) are defined as two or more drugs interacting in such a manner that the effectiveness or toxicity of one or more drugs is altered. DDI in patients receiving multiple drug therapy is a major concern. Such interactions may lead to an increased risk of hospitalization and higher health care costs. The present study was designed to assess the incidence and pattern of DDIs in hospitalized stroke patients in a tertiary care hospital. A prospective observational study was carried out for a period of 11 months (October 2010 to August 2011) in a tertiary care teaching hospital. A total of 290 prescriptions were analyzed during the study period and it was found that 115(53.4%) patients were confirmed with minimum of one DDI. A significant proportion of patients with DDIs were males 81 (70.4%). Patients with age group of >51 years had 37(32%) DDIs, and was followed by other age groups. Moreover, 62(54%) patients prescribed with more than 5 drugs developed higher number of DDIs. Some of the most common drug classes involved in DDIs in our study were anti-platelets, antihypertensive and antihyperlipidemic drugs. Among these drugs, clopidogrel and amlodipine, and clopidogrel and phenytoin were common. Our study highlights the drug-drug interactions, which is high among stroke patients prescribed with antihypertensive drug with clopidogrel in a tertiary care teaching hospital. Hence physicians should be aware of interactions among those drugs while prescribing and careful monitoring is required. However, further studies are needed to investigate the effect of individual antihypertensive drug interacting with clopidogrel.

Key words: Stroke, drug-drug interactions (ddis), gender, prescriptions, hospital, drugs.