Elderly people have multiple co morbidities and are often prescribed potentially inappropriate medications. The goal of prescription pattern is to facilitate the rational use of drugs in geriatric population as irrational use of medicines is a major problem. Hence, the aim of present research was to study the prescribing pattern in geriatric adults of a tertiary care teaching hospital. A 3-month prospective observational study was conducted for 3 months at Navodaya Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Raichur, Karnataka, analyzing patient data on demographics, diagnosis, prescribed drugs and generic names. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. A total of 60 samples were collected. The results showed that most patients were male, aged 65-75 and had an average of 7.4 drugs per prescription. Polypharmacy was evident and 52 patients received at least one inappropriate drug followed by drugs that could cause inappropriate drug-drug interactions as per BEERS criteria. 86.8% of prescription medications were from the essential medicine list and 17.5% were prescribed by generic name. The proportion of average drugs prescribed was high and most medications were from essential medicine list. Many of drugs were prescribed by brand names. Awareness among geriatrics should be created to improve their health and to avoid them from exposure to many drugs.
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