Preventability, Predictability and Seriousness of Adverse Drug Reactions amongst Medicine Inpatients in a Teaching Hospital: A Prospective Observational Study

People in every country of the world are affected by adverse drug reactions (ADR) and it is estimated that at least 60% of ADRs are preventable (WHO fact sheet). Data from various studies have shown that about 20 80% of ADRs are preventable. Majority of hospitals in India do not have an ADR reporting and monitoring programme. Moreover, assessment of the impact and potential for prevention was limited because many studies did not assess seriousness and preventability. Therefore we tried to analyze the preventability of reported ADRs in this study. Primary objectives were to assess the preventability and seriousness of reported ADRs. We have also tried to analyze the predictability, effect of length of hospitalization and predisposing factors responsible for ADRs. A prospective observational study was carried out for the duration of 8 months amongst medicine inpatients of a teaching hospital. Preventability, Predictability and Seriousness were assessed for each suspected ADR. In addition to this, effect of length of stay on happening of an ADR was also assessed. Our finding showed about 34% ADRs were “Definitely preventable”, 21% were “Probably preventable” while remaining 45% were “Not preventable”. 72.71% of the reactions prolonged the hospitalization of patients whereas 25.18% of the reactions required intervention to prevent permanent damage and only 2.10% of the reactions were life threatening. Almost 69% ADRs deemed predictable. Although ADRs encountered in the study are non serious and not preventable, management of such ADRs through therapeutic interventions would be beneficial in better patient outcome.