www.ijbcp.com International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology | November-December 2016 | Vol 5 | Issue 6 Page 2649 IJBCP International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology Print ISSN: 2319-2003 | Online ISSN: 2279-0780 Original Research Article Recent scenario on psychotropic drug usage pattern among patients attending psychiatric outpatient department of a tertiary care teaching hospital in Nepal Vijay Raj Kaul 1 , Mirza Atif Beg 2 *, Shaktibala Dutta 2 , Shalu Bawa 2 , Nand Kishore Singh 3 , Sri Hari Dutta 4 INTRODUCTION Psychiatric disorders form an important public health priority. Of the top ten health conditions contributing to the Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), four are psychiatric disorders. Psychiatric illnesses are associated with high levels of health service utilization and associated costs. 1,2 The expanding and challenging field of psychopharmacology is constantly seeking new and improved psychotropic drugs to treat psychiatric disorders. 3 Psychiatrists are continuously exposed to newly introduced drugs that are claimed to be safe and more efficacious. Newer drugs are however known to be expensive and unaffordable to the majority of patients, especially in developing countries. Although ABSTRACT Background: Due to increasing burden of psychiatric illnesses, it is essential to study the psychotropic drug utilization pattern in actual clinical practice. The objective of the study was to study the psychotropic drug usage pattern among patients attending psychiatric OPD of a tertiary care teaching hospital in Nepal. Methods: This observational retrospective study was conducted in Nepal Gunj Medical College, Nepal for a period of 6 months from January 2016 to June 2016. A total of 282 prescriptions from Psychiatric OPD were analysed for drug usage pattern. Prescriptions containing at least one psychotropic drug were included. Data was measured for number and percentage of prescriptions or drugs, using selected World Health Organization (WHO) drug use indicators. Results: A total of 282 prescriptions from Psychiatric OPD were analysed. Patients had a mean age of 35.01±1.17 years. Male and Female %age was 41.49% and 58.51% respectively. Majority of the patients (47.52%) were in 31- 45 years age group. 70.57% patients were literate. Depression was the leading psychiatric illness seen in 144 (51.06%) patients followed by Anxiety disorders which were seen in 60 (21.28%) patients. A total of 2463 drugs were prescribed which included 591 (23.99%) antipsychotic drugs followed by 462 (18.76%) antidepressants, 390 (15.83%) antiepileptics, 312 (12.67%) supplements, 276 (11.21%) antianxiety, 171 (6.94%) antacids, 165 (6.7%) anticholinergics, 96 (3.9%) drugs in miscellaneous category. Drugs prescribed per prescription were 8.73 and psychotropic drugs per prescription were 6.09. Number of oral and injectable drugs were 2313 (93.91%) and 150 (6.09%) respectively. 87 fixed dose combinations (FDCs) of psychotropic drugs were prescribed. 903 (36.66%) drugs were prescribed from WHO’s 18th List of Essential Medicines. Conclusions: Depression was the most common psychiatric illness and antipsychotics were the most commonly prescribed medicines in psychiatry OPD. Majority of the prescriptions revealed polypharmacy. Keywords: Drug utilization pattern, Psychotropic drugs, Polypharmacy, WHO drug use indicators DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20164140 1 Department of Psychiatry, Nepal Gunj Medical College, Nepal 2 Department of Pharmacology, SGRRIM and HS, Patel Nagar, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India 3 Department of Psychiatry, SGRRIM and HS, Patel Nagar, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India 4 Immunization Specialist (Supply Chain), Regional Office for South Asia, Lekhnath Marg, Kathmandu, Nepal Received: 04 October 2016 Accepted: 03 November 2016 *Correspondence to: Dr. Mirza Atif Beg, Email: mabeg1997@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. 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.