Prescribing Pattern of Hypertensive Medications in Elderly Patients with Diabetes Mellitus

Objective:To assess the pattern of prescribing for elderly patients who were suffering from hypertension and type-2 diabetes mellitus.

Methodolgy: It was a prospective observational study for six months carried out on in-patients who were admitted to general medicine units. The study protocol was approved by the human ethical committee. The patients of either sex and aged above 60 years and diagnosed as suffering from hypertension and diabetes mellitus. The clinical, social and medication data was collected from the case records into a specialised patient profile form to analyze prescribing pattern of medications. All data was analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Results and Discussion: Totally 57 prescriptions were collected from the same number of study patients. In which 40 prescriptions were collected from male patients while 17 prescriptions were from female patients. Out of57 prescriptions, 25(43.84%) were prescribed with one antihypertensive and one antidiabetic combination. In which the most frequently prescribed combination was amlodipine + insulin (26.31%) followed by telmisartan+ insulin (10.52%) among other combinations. Among 57 prescriptions, remaining 25 prescriptions were with combination of two antidiabetics and one antihypertensive medication such as metformin + Glimipiride + amlodipine (21.05%) combination was frequently prescribed among others. Among 57, in 3 prescriptions, combination of three antidiabetics and one antihypertensive medication such as insulin + metformin + Glimipiride + amlodipine were prescribed. Whereas, in another 2 prescriptions, the most frequently prescribed two antihypertensive and one antidiabetic combination was telmisartan + metformin + Glimipiride (3.50%).The remaining one prescription was found to be with insulin + telmisartan + hydrochlorothiazide (1.75%) combination. These combinations were prescribed based on the frequent changes of blood sugar and blood pressure in few patients suffering from hypertension and diabetes mellitus.

Conclusion: The combination of medications such as amlodipine + insulin and metformin + Glimipiride + amlodipine is frequently prescribed to treat hypertensive patients suffering from diabetes mellitus.