Comparative Assessment of Drug Interactions among Public and Private Sector Hospitals

Background: Drug-drug interactions (DDIs), being one of the most preventable drug related hazards having serious life threatening adverse consequences or at least results in therapeutic failure. Aim: To confirm the drug-drug interactions among medical patients at private and public sector hospitals of Jhelum and Kharian. Study design: Comparative study. Methodology: The collected data was analyzed for drug interactions. Patients who were being prescribed less than two drugs along with topical drugs (ointments, creams, ear drops and eye drops) were excluded. Information on prescriptions was retrieved from the hospital prescription. SPSS for windows version 20.0 was used to analyze the data. Results were presented as frequency and percentage. Results: The results showed that the public sector showed 1640 drug interactions, that is 75%; on the other hand, the private sector showed 260 drug interactions, that is 41%. Conclusions: We concluded that frequency of drug interactions were more in public sector hospitals. Hence, a possible reason for such a result could be the greater patient load on public sector hospitals and less number of appointed doctors in such facilities.