Abstract
Objective
To assess the prevalence and predictors of Potential drug–drug interactions (DDIs) at the chronic outpatient department of Dessie Referral Hospital, Dessie, Northeast Ethiopia.
Patients and Methods
A cross-sectional study was carried out on the medical records of patients treated in the chronic ambulatory department of Dessie Referral Hospital (DRH), from March 1/2019 to May 30/2019. Ethical clearance was granted from the department of pharmacy, college of medicine, and health sciences, Wollo University. Lexi-comp computer program database was used to detect pDDIs. SPSS version 22 was used to produce a descriptive analysis of the background data and logistic regression to identify predictors of pDDIs.
Results
In this study, the medical record of 300 patients has been reviewed and 489 pDDIs have been identified. The prevalence of pDDIs per patient was 1.63. Of all the identified pDDIs, the moderate severity interactions were the majority, 88.55% (n=433) followed by 8.38% (n=41) of minor, 2.66% (n=13) of major, and 0.41% (n=2) of contraindicated drug interactions. Taking three or more drugs at a time has been found as a statistically significant predictor of the occurrence of pDDIs.
Conclusion
A high rate of moderate severity pDDIs have been recorded. A system of checks and balances should be developed and executed for all those who are involved in prescribing, dispensing, and administration of medications for effective identification and prevention of pDDIs.
Data Sharing Statement
The data used to generate this result are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Ethical Review
This study was approved by the ethical committee of the department of pharmacy, college of medicine and health sciences, Wollo University. The ethical committee waived the need for patient consent provided that data collectors ensured privacy and confidentiality during the review of patients’ records. As a result, the name and addresses of patients were not recorded in the data collection forms. This study was done with the consideration and compliance with the declaration of Helsinki.
Author Contributions
All authors made substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; took part in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; agreed to submit to the current journal; gave final approval of the version to be published; and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.
Disclosure
The authors declare no conflicts of interest for this work.