A Prospective Study of the Drug Prescribing Rate and Pattern and Assessment of Adverse Drug Reactions in Patients with Idiopathic Parkinson Disease in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Aim: To determine the prescribing rate and pattern of antiparkinson drug use and to assess associated adverse drug reactions in patients with idiopathic Parkinson disease.
Materials and methods: Data was collected from the outpatients in neurology and medical records department. Patient demography, disease duration, symptoms, comorbid conditions, drug, dose, adverse drug reaction if any were noted. Information was collected again from the study participants during their routine follow up visit three months later to monitor the symptoms and adverse drug reactions (if any) occurring due to treatment. Causality assessment was done for the ADRs reported based on WHO scale. Results: Male predominance was seen. A majority of patients were between 51 and 80 years and most of the patients had onset of disease between 51 and 70 years. The common presenting symptoms were rigidity, tremor and bradykinesia. Out of 100 patients, 48 received levodopa+carbidopa alone and the rest received combination therapy. The number of antiparkinson drug prescriptions increased with the disease duration. Sixty three patients had subjective improvement in the symptoms, of which bradykinesia was most common. Levodopa induced dyskinesia was the most common adverse drug reaction. The number of adverse drug reactions was significantly higher among patients receiving combination therapy. Conclusion: Our study provides a basic knowledge about the drug prescribing pattern in the treatment of Parkinson disease and also the adverse reactions to the drugs prescribed.

Author(s): Vijay Kumar Junjaiah, Shruthi Bhimalli, Smita Shenoy, Aparna Pai, Arul Amuthan and Tara V. Shanbhag

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