Yasmin, et al. Int J Pharm 2014; 4(1): 52-55 ISSN 2249-1848 www.pharmascholars.com 52 Research Article CODEN: IJPNL6 FIXED DOSE COMBINATION: UNDERSTANDING OF IMMINENT PHARMACIST Riffat Yasmin*, Sadia Shakeel, Wajiha Iffat, Madiha Fatima Sana Dow College of Pharmacy, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan *Corresponding author e-mail: yasmin.pharmacist@gmail.com ABSTRACT This study was conducted to evaluate the awareness of pharmacy students’ about prescribing fixed dose combination (FDC) in pharmacy institutions in Karachi. A cross sectional study was conducted during July-Sep, 2013. Participants’ overall response towards the importance of the FDCs was found positive. Out of 600 students, 511 pharmacy students (85.16%) responded the questionnaire, belonging to public and private institutes of Karachi. 47.7% of the respondents were aware of the practice for prescribing FDCs. Only 29.15% students were informed about the standard protocol for prescribing FDCs. 65.75% of the students agreed that patient compliance can be improved by using simpler dosage schedule of FDCs. On the other hand 49.9% of the students claimed that FDCs may lead to alteration of therapeutic effect due to possible drug-drug interaction. It is concluded that pharmacy students’ awareness of prescribing FDC is the demand of modern medicine to improve the patient compliance, ease in drug administration, safe and successful use of drugs. Key words: Fixed dose combinations, pharmacy students, Pakistan INTRODUCTION The term Fixed Dose (drug) Combination is defined as “a combination of two or more pharmacologically active compounds formulated as a single medicine irrespective of dosage form designed.” According to FDA; it is a combination of drug with another drug or a device or a biological product use for treatment. [1,2,3,4] There are certain factors that contribute in the rationality of FDCs such as mechanism of drugs action; pharmacokinetics of drugs and toxicological study of drugs in combination. Rational drug therapy focuses on safety, effectiveness and good quality of drug to be used for treatment purpose. [4, 5] These combinations may range from simple nutritional tonics i.e. multivitamins to infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis etc. [1] Moreover FDCs are also used in various ailments such as orthopedic disorders, aches, cough, GI infections, diarrhea, anemia etc. [6] For the treatment of diseases like antiretroviral, antitubercular, antimalarial and anticancer therapy, FDCs play an important role in improving the patient’s quality of life. [4,7,8] WHO also favored this pattern of drug use and in 14 th model list of essential drugs, three hundred and twelve formulations were included containing eighteen formulations in the form of FDC. [9,10] Reasons to use FDC include availability of an easy combination, ease of prescribing by physician, [4] patient adherence i.e. reduced pill burden on patient etc. [11] However most FDCs bear the disadvantage of increased adverse effects, drug-drug interactions, needless financial burden, [12] increase hospitalization, decreased quality of life and some times increased medication cost. [4] Dose adjustment of combined drugs, their frequency of drug administration is also complicated if both drugs in combination have different pharmacokinetics. [13] Therefore it is suggested that clinical testing of such combination drugs should be conducted to avoid any complication and irrational therapy to ensure patient safety. [14,15] There are numerous FDCs which are available in the market and hence the knowledge regarding the prescribing patterns is important for International Journal of Pharmacy Journal Homepage: http://www.pharmascholars.com