DRUG UTILISATION EVALUATION OF CORTICOSTEROIDS IN TERTIARY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL

Objective: Steroids are widely prescribed and used by practitioners due to powerful anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive actions. So, care should be exercised in the rational selection of steroids. The main aim of our study is to assess prescribing patterns, demographic and clinical variables such as drug interactions associated with corticosteroid administration and steroidal use in a tertiary care teaching hospital. Methods: This is a prospective observational study conducted for 6 months in all departments of a tertiary care hospital of various age groups in all the departments were included. The study was carried out by taking 310 participants into consideration, and their prescribing patterns were observed and analyzed. Statistical procedure of One way ANOVA was done in SPSS version 16 software. Two way ANOVA was done which showed that variability is observed in the gender groups with treatment about steroids treatment. Results: Steroids were prescribed for various age groups of patients; 84 patients are above 60 years of age. Among 310, 183 patients were male and 127 patients were female. The social history of each patient was collected and analyzed 116 patients are Smokers and 194 patients are non-smokers and 118 patients are Alcoholics and 192 patients are non-alcoholics. Budesonide was most widely used for about 39%. Systemic route (42.9%) is the most commonly used route of administration for the steroids. We found 13.5% Major interactions, 91.6% Moderate interactions, 20.3% Minor interactions. Conclusion: Our study reveals that there was a significant difference between the steroid treatments.