ADR Monitoring of Hypertensive Patients in General Medicine Department

Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to anti-hypertensive agents are common and can lead to noncompliance or even discontinuation of therapy. There is paucity of such data in the Indian context. We deemed it worthwhile to assess the suspected ADR profile of anti-hypertensive drugs in an ambulatory setting in a public teaching hospital. A longitudinal observational study was conducted in the outpatient department (OPD) of the concerned unit. Twenty consecutive patients per day, irrespective of their hypertensive diagnosis, were screened for suspected ADRs, 2 days in a week, over 6 months. Adverse event history, medication history and other relevant details were captured in a format as adopted. We screened 2000 patients (68.69% males, median age 38 years), of whose 429 were suspected of having at least one ADR; 84 cases had insufficient evidence about causality and were excluded from further analysis. Thus, 17.25% (95% confidence interval: 15.59-18.91%) of our study population reported ADRs with at least "possible" causality. Of 352 events recorded, 327 (92.90%) were "probable" and the rest "possible".

Autorentext

Sreenu Thalla. Professeur associé, département de pharmacologie, Chalapathi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (autonome), Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, Inde. Ses recherches portent sur les directives réglementaires relatives à l'autorisation de mise sur le marché.