Prescribing Pattern of Anti-depressant drugs in Anxiety and Depressive disorder in Kathmandu valley

Abstract

Introduction: Anxiety and depression embrace a range of mental conditions occurring frequently in primary health care, usually in the form of overt disorders.
Methods: Our study site included three hospitals inside Kathmandu valley. The study was a cross sectional study review of patients attending the outpatients department of the hospital. One hundred and sixty subjects were enrolled in this study and duration of study was six months.
Results: Out of 160 patients, 81 (50.6%) were female and 79 (49.4%) were male with a mean age of 37.75±1.65. Majority of patients 100 (62.5%) were married. Majority of patient 39 (24.4%) were found to be of bachelor level, which showed prevalence of anxiety and depressive disorder more on educated groups than uneducated groups. Housewives were the highly affected group 40 (25%). Among all the antidepressant drugs prescribed, Escitalopram was highly prescribed with the frequency of 70 (48.3%). Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors were the most common drug class with frequency 105 (65.6%). Clonazepam was the highly prescribed benzodiazepine in combination with antidepressant. Combination therapy was used in majority of cases 136 (85.0%) and Mono-therapy was used only in 24 (15.0%) cases.
Conclusion: Majority of anxiety and depressive disorder prevalence was observed in Female than in male.In anxiety disorder no mono-therapy was preferred whereas in depressive disorder both combination and mono-therapy was preferred. Combination therapy was preferred over mono-therapy.Most commonly prescribed antidepressant was Escitalopram and highly prescribed drug class was SSRI’s.Clonazepam was the highly prescribed benzodiazepine in combination with antidepressant drugs.