| Drug utilization is the marketing, distribution, prescription and the use of drugs in a society. Antidepressant prescribing patterns have changed globally over the last few years, with conventional drugs like tricyclics & MAO inhibitors being gradually replaced by SSRIs & novel antidepressants. Here an attempt has been made to study the pattern of drug utilization of antidepressant drugs in our hospital. Aims to observe the prescribing pattern of antidepressants among psychiatrists at K R Hospital, Mysore. To assess the use of antidepressants in diagnosis other than depressive disorder. A retrospective observational analysis of the case records of patients who received antidepressant prescriptions at the psychiatry inpatient of K R Hospital, during the period from 1st July 2011 to 31st June 2012, to study the pattern of prescription & to assess the use of antidepressants. Out of 135 patients who received psychotropic medications during the study period, 82(60.7%) received one or more antidepressants. Among antidepressants SSRIs were the most commonly prescribed antidepressants followed by tricyclics and atypical antidepressants. The total number of prescriptions which were given was 135 and a total of 486drugs were prescribed. Of them, 91 were antidepressant medications of 10 types. Average number of drugs per prescription was 3.6. Mean number of antidepressants per patient was 0.67. Antidepressants usage per patient was 1.08. Our study shows that depressive disorder was the 3rd most common psychiatric diagnosis in the population and that antidepressants were 2nd most commonly prescribed psychotic medicines. There was a higher prevalence of antidepressant prescribing to men. A majority of the antidepressants were prescribed to young & older adults between 21 & 40 years. The SSRI fluoxetine & escitalopram and tricyclic antidepressant imipramine were the most commonly prescribed antidepressants, with or without other concomitant psychotropic medicines.ddd |
