Drug-drug interactions are those in which two or more number of drugs are interactive in terms of alteration in their effectiveness or toxicity nature. The mechanism of drug-drug interactions includes pharmacokinetic mechanism of interactions and pharmacodynamic mechanism of interactions. Drug interactions leads to increased hospital stay and health care costs. This study was aimed to evaluate drug-drug interactions in the medication charts of the patients. A prospective study was carried out for a period of 3 months in a tertiary care teaching hospital. A total of 500 prescriptions were selected randomly in General Medicine Department and analyzed for drug interactions using resources such as MICROMEDEX DRUGDEX and DRUGS.COM. Out of 500 prescriptions 140 prescriptions were found with 173 DDIs. Majority of DDIs 43 were found with age 51-60 years. Out of 173 DDI’s 150 were potential DIs and 23 were actual DIs. Most of the DDIs were found to be pharmacodynamic drug interactions (50.87%) followed by pharmacokinetic Drug Interactions (31.79%) and unknown mechanism. (31.79%). A severity assessment showed that majority of DDI’s were major (60.12%), followed by moderate (36.42%), contraindicated (2.31%) and minor DDI’s (1.16%). The study results showed that as the number of drugs increases in a prescription, the number of DDIs also increases. The interventions determined showed that dosage adjustment (12%) was to be followed in most of the DDIs. This study assists in understanding the factors associated with DDIs that can help in safe and effective use of drugs.
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