Prescribing Pattern of Oral Antihyperglycaemic Drugs, Rationality and Adherence to American Diabetes Association (ADA) Treatment Guidelines among Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) Postmenopausal Women.

INTRODUCTION: Oral antihyperglycaemic prescription trends keep on changing and thus the drug prescription trend study may prove to be powerful exploratory tool for health care providers.

AIM: To investigate trends in prescriptions of oral antihyperglycaemic drugs (OHDs) among postmenopausal women suffering from T2DM in India and evaluate the rationality and adherence to ADA treatment guidelines.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: An observational, cross-sectional descriptive prescription audit (n=500) was carried. Postmenopausal women were interviewed in their local language using pre-tested pre validated questionnaire after verbal informed consent at a teaching tertiary care hospital of north India. Oral antihyperglycaemic drugs (OHDs) drugs were categorized as per the pharmacological classification. Adherence to available clinical practice guidelines/recommendations issued under American Diabetes Association (ADA) 2015 Guidelines as well as rationality of these prescriptions were assessed using WHO Guide to Good Prescribing.

RESULTS: Mean age of the study population was 58.14±12.86. Mean duration since menopause was 5.3 years and of T2DM was 9.5 years. A 93.4% of the prescriptions had only OHDs whereas 6.6% of the prescriptions had various insulin preprations + OHDs (p<0.0001). Biguanides followed by sulfonylureas, thiazolidinediones, DPP-inhibitors and alpha-glucosidases inhibitor were prescribed in 85.6%, 59.8%, 26.6%, 26% and 12.2% respectively as monotherapy or in combination. Among biguanides, metformin was the most frequently prescribed OHDs. In spite of black box warning on pioglitazone, it was prescribed in 26.6% as FDC. However, clear increase use of vidagliptine was noticed upto 26%. Among combinations most frequent was metformin plus glimipride followed by voglibose plus metformin, whereas, among FDC, metformin plus glimipride followed by metformin plus vidagliptine were most frequently prescribed.

CONCLUSION: Metformin was the most common OHDs to be prescribed followed by glimepiride. Although pioglitazone still continues to be prescribed after safety alert but apparently it appears that the share of pioglitazone has been shifted to vidagliptin or combinations like metformin plus glimipride. Polypharmacy, high use of FDC, & prescription by brand names were some of the irrationalities. Relatively low adherence to ADA treatment guidelines was observed.