Prevalence and Characteristics of Polypharmacy and Drug-Drug Interaction in Afincho Ber Health Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Polypharmacy is the prescription of multiple medications for a patient which is a common problem worldwide. The aim of this study was to identify the extent of polypharmacy and occurrence of drug–drug interaction in Afincho Ber Health Centre, Addis Ababa. The study was conducted by retrospective crosssectional review of prescriptions of all adult outpatients for a period of 6 months at Afincho Ber Health Centre. In this study, polypharmacy was defined as prescription of 4 or more drugs. All the statistical calculations were performed using SPSS^® software version 20. Drug-drug interactions were identified using computer based Micromedex2^® software. Among the total of 271 prescriptions analyzed, 113 (41.70%) were identified as polypharmacy. At least one drug-drug interaction was detected in 106 (39.1%) prescriptions of which 17 (16.04%) were severe drug interactions. In conclusion, polypharmacy and drug-drug interaction were both identified to be commonly encountered problems among the outpatients.

Keywords: Polypharmacy, Drug-drug Interactions, Health Centre, Retrospective Cross-sectional Review, Ethiopia