Evaluation of Drug Utilization and Analysis of Anti- Epileptic Drugs at Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Background: Epilepsy has been considered as a public health problem by WHO and ILAE. It was felt that there remains considerable scope for the development of better epilepsy services in a developing country like India. Hence we sought to evaluate the drug utilization of antiepileptic drugs. Aim: The study was designed to evaluate the drug utilization of anti epileptic drugs in in-patient admission of medicine and pediatric departments at tertiary care teaching hospital. Methods: The data was obtained prospectively from 132 patients with antiepileptic drug over a period of 6 months. The utilization was assessed based on age, seizure type, therapy, newer and conventional AEDs and rationality of prescriptions. Results: AEDs are highly prescribed for an age group of 0-2 years in the study. AEDs are highly prescribed as monotherapy in 62.12% of the patients. In the study 51.5% of AED were prescribed alone and 40.62% of AED with add-on therapy of benzodiazepine and found statistically significant (P<0.005). Assessment of rationality was done as per ILAE and IAP guidelines of which 64% and 75.7% were found to be rational respectively. Conclusion: In the study, conventional AEDs are used as monotherapy was more effective in terms of reduction of seizures, as they are available at low costs and are more affordable than the newer drugs and polytherapy. The study concludes the effective use of benzodiazepines along with AED. Due to the lack of specific guidelines for the usage of AED in India, the rationality in the prescription is variable and poor.