Background: Diabetes mellitus is an emerging non communicable, life style disease. The aim was to evaluate the drug utilization pattern of anti-diabetic drugs in diabetic outpatients and monitor the adverse drug reactions (ADRs) associated with anti-diabetic therapy.
Materials and methods: A prospective observational study was carried out in adult diabetic patients from the Department of General Medicine of a rural tertiary care hospital in October 2013- December 2014 after obtaining written informed consent from the patient and approval from institutional ethics committee. Demographic data, drug utilization pattern, cost of the antidiabetic drugs along with defined daily dose was calculated. ADRs due to anti-diabetic drugs were summarized.
Results: A total of 450 patients were enrolled in the study of which there was male preponderance and majority belong to geriatric age. The most common comorbidity was hypertension. Insulin was most commonly prescribed drug during hospital stay and metformin at the time of discharge. Of the combination therapy dual therapy of metformin and glimipiride was most preferred. The total antihyperglycaemic drug consumption was 15.65 DDD/100 bed days. 67 ADR were reported of which the most common was hypoglycaemia.
Conclusions: The study showed insulin and metformin were the most commonly used drugs. The prescribing trend also appears to be moving towards combination therapy particularly two drug therapies. The most commonly reported ADR was hypoglycaemia.
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