Appraisal of Drug Utilization Pattern in Intensive Care Unit: A Retrospective Study

The study aimed to assess the prescribing trends in the intensive care unit of a tertiary care hospital. A retrospective cross - sectional study of 150 patients attended to ICU in tertiary care hospital from February 2019 to June 2019. Of 150 pts considered into the study, 54.7% were males and 45.3% were females. More number of patients (36%) were prescribed with 4 - 6 drugs, followed by 24% of patients with 7 - 9 drugs, 22% with 1 - 3 drugs, and 18% with 10 - 12 drugs. The most commonly prescribed drugs are NSAIDs (38%), followed by GI drugs (19%), CNS drugs (13%), CVS drugs (11%), anti - infective drugs (10%), and others (9%). Of all these 51% of drugs were administered by oral route, 38% of drugs by the parentral route. Our study concludes that NSAIDs were the most frequent class of drugs administered to patients. The highest number of drugs was prescribed for gastrointestinal diseases, followed by neurological and cardiovascular diseases. The results of the present study were attempts to highlight the importance of strategies that have to be implemented to optimize medication use at the ICU.