A Clinical Audit of Psychotropic Drug Use in a Nigerian Teaching Hospital

Background and Objective: Antipsychotics use has provoked increasing concern due to their associated adverse drug reactions. The irrational use of medicines is another factor that may contribute to the adverse effects of drugs. The objective of this study is to investigate self-reported adverse effects and drug use evaluation of antipsychotics in the Department of Psychiatry, Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto. Materials and Methods: A 6-year cross-sectional retrospective descriptive study, involving case records of all patients diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder and received psychotropic medications. Data were extracted and analyzed. Results were presented as the Mean+SD for age, the Median+SD for total drug use and percentages for qualitative variables. The χ² was used to determine factors associated with ADRs with a p-value of 0.05. Results: About 1266 files were included, with a mean age of 33.09±12.89 years. About 31.6% of the patients had reported at least one adverse effect, excessive salivation (13.5%) was most frequent. Benzhexol was the most (27.0%) prescribed medication. The average amount of medication used in each encounter was 3.2 (SD = 0.82). The percentage of medicines prescribed by their generic names was 73.1%. The percentage of encounters with an antibiotic prescribed was less than 30 and 2% of drugs were given via the injection route. Prescribing from an Essential Drug List (EDL) or some other formulary is not usual in this setting. Conclusion: There was a high prevalence of adverse effects. Adherence to the WHO/INRUD core prescribing indicators was not optimal. The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) guideline was not strictly adhered to in managing patients in this study.