Abstract

Background: An event involving drug therapy that actually or potentially interferes with the desired health outcomes is known as drug therapy problem.

Objective: The study aimed to identify drug related problems encountered by hypertensive patients receiving care in a Nigeria Tertiary Hospital.

Methods: This study was a retrospective analysis of the medical records of Adult hypertensive patients. A total of 171 patient folders were used for the study. The data were collected from the patients’ medical records using the Pharmaceutical Care Network Europe (PCNE) Classification tool Version 6.2 (PCNE, 2010). For each of the 171 medical records, the DTPs experienced within the study period were identified. The demographic information such as age and gender were recorded. Other items documented were the drugs implicated in the therapy problems, type of drug therapy problem, cause of drug therapy problem (DTP), type of intervention and the outcome of intervention. Data were analyzed using the IBM Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) for Windows, Version 21.0 (IBM Corp, Version 21.0, and Armonk, NY, USA).

Results: Majority of the patients were above 65years of age 64(37.4%), while about half of the patients were females. Also, most of the patients were traders 62(36.3%), 146(85.4%) were married, 146(79.1%) were Christians by religion and 164(95.9%) were currently non-smokers as at the time of the study. It was also found that approximately 53.2% of the patients suffered from two or more diseases. The most common hypertension co morbid disease was congestive heart failure 41(23.9%) followed by Diabetes mellitus (31.1%). In this study the average number of anti-hypertension medications prescribed per patient was 1.58 ± 0.69 with minimum of one and maximum of four. Most patients were on two combined therapy 66(38.6%), 75(43.9%) were on three combined therapy and only 10(5.8%) were on monotherapy. Amlodipine was most commonly prescribed 90(52.6%) followed by losartan 75(43.9%). The total number of drug related problem found was 193 which 60 (31.1%) were noncompliance. Unnecessary drug treatment was the least type of drug therapy problem encountered.

Conclusion: The prevalence of drug therapy problems among hypertensive patients was high. Presence of co-morbidity increase number of medication and age were associated with an increase in drug therapy problem. Increased drug therapy problem can lead to increase in complications, increased hospital stay, emergency hospitalization and increased medical cost.

Keyword: Hypertension; Drug therapy Problem; Antihypertensives