Pharmacotherapy of Different Tuberculosis Patients its Analysis and Outcomes: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Abstract

This study aim was to evaluate the prescribed therapies and to identify various drug-related problems as well as their causes in different TB patients admitted at the Pulmonology Department, Northwest General Hospital and Research Centre, Hayatabad, Peshawar, Pakistan. A 5-month retrospective study was conducted in which a total of 525 patients’ medical records were collected using predesigned standard data collection proforma. Among them, 25 patients having incomplete medical records were excluded and the rest of 500 cases were involved and analyzed accordingly. In all these cases, the causative agent was Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Overall 14 drugs of 133 different therapeutic classes were used in which the most frequently prescribed drugs to these patients were Anti-Tuberculosis drugs (100%), Antibiotic (100%), Multivitamins (78%), GIT drugs (55%) and Antihistamines (55%) followed by other drugs listed in the present study. Out of 500 cases, a total of 179 (35.8%) patients were identified had Drug-related problems, among them 23 (4.6%) cases were in untreated condition, in 12 (2.4%) cases drugs without indication problems were found, in 43 (8.6%) cases there were adverse drug reactions problems noted, in 75 (15%) cases total drug interactions problems were identified, while in 26 (5.2%) cases polypharmacy problems were found. The prescribed pharmacotherapy in all 500 cases meets with the standard pharmacotherapy. However, the discrepancies observed in the present study were due to lack of proper knowledge about the pharmacology of the drugs, overburden on doctors and proper lack of patient counseling. To better understand the proper management and reduction of these problems other health care professionals and proper clinical pharmacists are required to cooperate for the sake of improving the outcomes of the pharmacotherapy.