Prescription pattern of anti-epileptic medications in a tertiary care centre

Abstract

Introduction: The objective of this study was to study the prescribing pattern of antiepileptic medications in patients with epilepsy in a tertiary care hospital. Materials and Methods: This was an observational study, conducted in psychiatry outpatient department (OPD) of Bapuji attached to Jagadguru Jayadeva Murugarajendra medical college and CG Hospital, Davangere. Patients demographic details, clinical diagnosis, type of epilepsy, type of AED used, drug dose and frequency of 100 outpatients who attended the psychiatry OPD was recorded. Results: A total of 100 prescriptions were analysed with more number of males (62%) than females (38%). Epilepsy was more commonly seen in the patients of age group of 20-40 years (52%) and GTCS was diagnosed in 79% of the patients followed by partial seizures and other types. Majority of them received monotherapy (67%) with most commonly prescribed AED phenobarbitone (28%) followed by phenytoin (16%), levetiracetam (12%), carbamazepine (8%), lorazepam (2%) and ethosuximide (1%). 33% of the patients received combined therapy, most commonly used two drug combination was phenobarbitone with phenytoin and three drug combination was with phenobarbitone, phenytoin and carbamazepine. 19 patients reported adverse events, most common were related to CNS. Conclusion: In our study, majority of the patients were males with age group 20-40 yrs and most commonly used drugs were conventional AEDs as monotherapy with phenobarbitone, phenytoin and levetiracetam. Keywords: Epilepsy, Anti Epileptic Drug (AED), Monotherapy, Combined therapy, Prescribing pattern.