Print ISSN 2319-2003 | Online ISSN 2279-0780 doi: 10.5455/2319-2003.ijbcp20140409 IJBCP International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology www.ijbcp.com International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology | March-April 2014 | Vol 3 | Issue 2 Page 303 Research Article Study of prescribing patterns of antihypertensives in South Indian population Manasa Cidda 1 , Uday Venkat Mateti 1 , Murali Krishna Batchu 2 , Srinivas Martha 1,3 * INTRODUCTION Hypertension affects approximately 972 million people, 333 million in economically developed countries and 639 million in economically developing countries in 2000 and is expected to 156 billion in 2025. 1 Epidemiological studies demonstrate that the prevalence of hypertension is increasing rapidly among Indian urban and rural populations. Prevalence of hypertension in India is reported to vary from 4% to 15% in urban and 2-8% in rural population. 2,3 Hypertension increase with significant age, obesity, lifestyle, smoking, and alcohol use. These related factors in prevalence of essential hypertension were seen. 4 Poor control of this high prevalent disease can lead to the development of ischemic heart disease (IHD), stroke, diabetes and chronic renal failure. This situation is graver in our country since with modernization, we are trading healthy traditional diets for fatty foods; physical jobs for desk bound once and calm rural life for stressful city life. Thus after being referred the diabetic capital; India is also slated to become the hypertension capital. If hypertension left untreated about 50% of the patients will die of coronary, 33% of cerebrovascular stroke, 20% of diabetes and 10-15% chronic renal failure. Therefore, it is important to control the elevated Blood Pressure (BP). 5 ABSTRACT Background: Objective of the study is to study the prescribing pattern of drugs used in the management of hypertension. Methods: A prospective study was conducted for the period of 6 months in an out-patient department. All patients of either gender with primary essential hypertensive patients who have been diagnosed with hypertension as per Joint National Committee-VII (JNC-VII) guidelines and patients receiving or prescribed with antihypertensive drugs were included. The collected was analyzed for the demographic profile of the patients and the prescribing pattern of antihypertensives drugs used in the treatment of hypertension. Results: A total of 360 prescriptions were analyzed during the study period, 59% were male and 41% were female. Maximum numbers of the patients were in the age group of 32.2% (50-59) years and 56.73% of the patients were in Stage-I hypertension. The results revealed that, the maximum number of patients underwent dual therapy, followed by 30.24% monotherapy, 13% of patients with triple drug therapy and 8.31% of the patients treated with more than 3 drugs. The results of pharmacotherapy revealed that dual therapy was the most preferred choice of treatment in reducing systolic blood pressure with (25.13%, p<0.0001) Angiotensin receptor-II blocker (ARBs) + β–Blockers than ARBs alone. Whereas in diastolic blood pressure there is a high percentage of reduction was found with (20.24%, p<0.0001) angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) + calcium channel blockers (CCBs) compare to ACEIs used alone. Conclusion: The most common drug classes involved in the study was ARBs 42.24% followed by CCBs 22%. The prescribing patterns of antihypertensive drugs follow the standard treatment as per the algorithm JNC-VII guidelines for hypertension. Keywords: Antihypertensives, Blood pressure, Prescription 1 Department of Pharmacy Practice, St. Peter’s Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kakatiya University, Warangal - 506 001, Andhra Pradesh, India, 2 Satya Hospital, Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, India, 3 Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, College of Health Science, Aksum University, Axum - 1010, Ethiopia Received: 04 January 2014 Accepted: 02 February 2014 *Correspondence to: Dr. Srinivas Martha, Email: srinivasmartha@gmail. com © 2014 Cidda M et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.