Dwajani S

Abstract

Epileptic convulsions have negative consequences on patient’s psychological and social life like relationship, education and employment. Seizure which are uncontrolled, are always associated with poor quality of life, physical and psychosocial morbidity, increased risk of sudden unexpected death. Hence, it is important and becomes mandatory to treat epilepsy with appropriate antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) as soon as the patient reports with more than one documented or witnessed seizure. Our purpose was to investigate the use of antiepileptic drugs in epilepsy, changes in prescription patterns, exposure to specific drugs, combination of drugs, and to quantify the use of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in epilepsy at a tertiary care hospital. A Total of 105 patients were recruited, majority were male and between 18-25 yrs. and belonged to upper lower class. 80% were diagnosed with GTCS. Majority were on monotheraphy and phenytoin was most commonly used antiepileptic drug for the treatment of epilepsy. The drugs prescribed are mainly from older AEDs. Selection of AEDs is based on their known efficacy for specific seizure. Such studies was help in modifying the prescription guidelines as they have an important role in making rationale prescription and to see if it’s being followed at tertiary care centres. Keywords: Epilepsy, Antiepileptic drugs, Rational drug use, Drug utilization.

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Abstract

Non-adherence leads to considerable morbidity, mortality and avoidable health care costs. adherence averages to only 50 % in patients suffering from chronic medical illness. Often, adherence and compliance are used interchangeably. Several determinants have been reported to influence adherence, like nature and duration of therapy, characteristics of disease, side-effects of medication, treatment cost, characteristics of health service facilities, the relation between the physician and patient, patient characteristics, patient’s perspective about the illness and therapy. The determinants of non-adherence according to World Health Organization (WHO) are categorized into five factors: socioeconomic, health system-related, therapy-related, condition-related and patient-related. Issues associated with medication non-adherence, which are diverse and complex have been extensively researched for decades and are documented well throughout the literature. In light of this, our study is focused specifically on providing an overview of factors affecting adherence and commonly used measures of medication adherence. Keywords: Adherence, Compliance, Treatment, Factors

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