Utilization of Antihypertensive Drugs: A Comparison of Tertiary and Secondary Health Care Institutions in Northwestern Nigeria

Abstract

To compare the quality of antihypertensive prescriptions at 2 different health care levels in a hypertensive Nigerian population.We carried out a retrospective comparative analysis of the quality and pattern of antihypertensive and low-dose aspirin prescription in a tertiary and two secondary health care institutions providing specialize and generalized care, respectively, in northwestern Nigeria.The study population included 114 and 146 patients managed in the tertiary and secondary health centres, respectively. Compared to the secondary health institutions, the tertiary health institution had significantly higher utilization of diuretics (P=0.002), calcium channel blocker (p<0.0001), low dose aspirin (P<0.0001)and combination drug regimen (P=0.02). There were significantly higher proportions of prescriptions of brand named (P<0.0001), and potentially inappropriate antihypertensive drugs (P=0.003) and low dose aspirin (p=0.003) at the secondary than tertiary health care levels. In conclusion our findings demonstrate differences in the quality of anti-hypertensive prescriptions patterns at different health care levels in the study population. 

Keywords: Anti-hypertensive prescription, health care levels.