Assessment of Prescribing Pattern of Antihypertensive Medications in Elderly Hypertensive

Introduction: In elderly hypertensive patients, blood pressure is over 140/90mmHg. Diuretics, renin angiotensin aldosterone system inhibitors, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, alpha blockers and direct vasodilators are commonly prescribed to treat geriatric hypertensive patients. The choice of drugs for a particular patient changes at short intervals because of factors like changes in vascular compliance, efficacy, side effects, cost and launch of new drugs in pharmaceutical market. These facts indicate the need for assessment of prescribing pattern of antihypertensives.

Objective: The prescribing pattern of antihypertensive medications was assessed in elderly patients who were suffering from hypertension.

Methodology: 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 satisfying the study criteria such as diagnosed newly as suffering from hypertension as per Joint National Committee (JNC-7) guidelines and prescribed with antihypertensive medications were enrolled. 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 the data was analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Results and Discussion: Totally 93 prescriptions were collected from the study patients. The proportion of male to female patients was 53:46 and their mean age was 68.74 ± 8.6years. Of 93 prescriptions, 50 (53.76%) prescriptions were containing antihypertensive medications as monotherapy and 43 (46.23%) prescriptions were containing antihypertensive medications as combination drug therapy.

Of 50 prescriptions that were containing single antihypertensive medications, amlodepine was frequently 26 (52%) found prescribed among others. The results obtained in our study were similar to the study results conducted by Mohammed A et al. Among 43 prescriptions that were containing combination of antihypertensive medications, telmisartan+ hydrochlorothiazide were the drug combinations that were frequently 22 (51.16%) found prescribed among others.The results obtained in our study were similar to the study results conducted by Arshad HM et al.

This combination was reported as fixed dose combinations used in hospitals in for treating patients enrolled in other studies.

Conclusion: The medications such as amlodipine and telmisartanand hydrochlorothiazide are frequently prescribed as monotherapy and combination therapy respectievely to treat elderly patients suffering from hypertension.