An Investigation of Drug Interactions in Hospital Pharmacy Prescriptions

Drug therapy is a complex and important process and because of the importance of drug interactions, especially in in-patients, accompanying problems and obstacles would exist as a result of concomitant use of drugs in these patients. For this purpose 3130 prescription order forms from Bou-Ali hospital were collected and all potential drug interactions presentwere extracted and evaluated in terms of significance, severity, documentation and onset. Interactions were divided into 5 groups based on their significance, with group 1 being the most important and group 5 the least important. Most interactions observed belonged to groups 4 and 5, accounting for 68.5% of all interactions.Group 1 interactions only accounted for 7.8% of all interactions observed. When considering the onset of interactions, the most dominant type (55.8% of all interactions) were the slow-occurring ones. In terms of the severity, most interactions (47.2%) were of the medium (moderate) type. Strong (severe) interactions only accounted for 8.2% of all interactions. Finally, in terms of the documentation of interactions, the most prevalent type were the probable ones, accounting for 56.8% of all interactions observed. Definite interactions only accounted for 4.3% of all interactions.