Drug Utilization Evaluation of Antiepileptic Drugs in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Background& Objectives Epilepsy is characterized by repeated seizures due to disorder of the brain cells. Antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) treatment based on patient specific consideration including adverse effects. The objective of present study to evaluate antiepileptic drugs use in an outpatient epilepsy clinic in a tertiary care hospital and classify the seizure, analyse drug utilization pattern, categorization of AEDs, assessment of tolerability, drug interactions and contraindication. Materials and methods A retrospective drug use evaluation using patient medical records and the necessary datas were collected by using data collection formats and results were evaluated against the criteria prepared from the standard treatment guidelines. Results 114 patients records were studied and simple partial seizures (27.2 %) were found most common type of epileptic seizure. Conventional antiepileptic drugs were given for the majority patients (34.2 %) and headache (19.2 %) was commonest adverse effect reported. The most commonly prescribed drugs were Levetiracetam (44.7 %), which was given mostly for simple partial seizure (41.1 %), followed by Carbamazepine and Clobazam (26.3 %) and potential drug-drug interactions were also reported as 36.8 % cases. Conclusion This study suggests the dynamic role of a clinical pharmacist in the review of drug use in hospitals and the importance of DUE program as tool for improving clinical care rather than a budget plan.