Over the last decade, diabetes mellitus has emerged as an important clinical and public health problem throughout the world. The aim of the study is to evaluate prescribing pattern and potential drug-drug interactions in hospitalized patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. The prospective study was conducted over a period of six months in the department of Medicine, Bharati Hospital. The prevalence of type2 diabetes was high in male 57.14 % than female 42.86%. Majority of the patients 51 (48.57%) belonged to age group of 41–60 years. Average drugs per prescription were 12.2. 99.0% of the drugs were prescribed by their brand names. 73.77% of the drugs prescribed were from the WHO list of essential drugs. Totally, 58.10 % of patients were on monotherapy and human insulin (50.48%) was commonly prescribed. In combination therapy, Glimepride and Metformin with insulin (10.48 %) were mostly consumed followed by Glimepiride and Metformin (4.76%) fixed dose therapy. 60 drug -drug interactions were encountered in the study, comprising of 18 (17.14%) actual and 42 (40.00%) were potential drug -drug interactions. As per severity, 16.67% were major, 72.22% were moderate and 11.11% were minor. The potential drug-drug interactions are frequent in type 2 diabetes mellitus and hence, deserve clinical attention. In our study, the generic drug prescription is low and the essential drug prescription is high, hence the prescription by generics should be promoted more for cost effective treatment.
Keywords: Diabetes Mellitus, potential and actual drug-drug interaction, prescribing pattern.