A Study to Evaluate Pharmacoeconomics of Antihypertensive Drugs in a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Abstract

Background: Hypertension is a major public health problem associated with large health burden as well as high economic burden at individual and population levels. A prospective observational study carried out in in-patients admitted to general medicine department of tertiary care hospital to evaluate the most cost effective therapy among the monotherapy of Amlodipine and combination therapy of telmisartan + hydrochlorthiazide.
 Methods: A total of 120 Hypertensive patients case records prescribed with monotherapy of Amlodipine and combination therapy of Telma H were reviewed and evaluated using descriptive statistics and ‘p’ value and assessed for their financial burden based on the cost per tablet for an year, Cost effectiveness ratio for the patients with controlled Blood Pressure by using a particular drug.
 Results: Out of 120 patients females were more (59.2%) and most of them were under the age group of 41-60 years. Majority of the patients had a known history of hypertension (65%). Most of the patients were prescribed with Telma H 40/12.5mg (40%) followed with Amlong 5mg (35.8%). There was a significant positive correlation (i.e., p value= 0.05) between persistence patterns of patients with drug therapy. Probability of patients with controlled Blood Pressure taking Amlong 10 mg were 82.35% followed by patients with Amlong 5mg.
 Conclusion: This study clearly showed that monotherapy of amlodipine is the most cost effective therapy than combination therapy of Telma H in order to reduce financial burden to the patient as well as to decrease the complications.
 Keywords: Hypertension, Pharmacoeconomics, Cost effectiveness, Blood Pressure.