Introduction: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is slowly becoming a health challenge in Nepal with rising prevalence.Understanding the sociodemographic characteristics and medication utilization patterns in patients with CKD is crucial for medication optimization in resourcelimited settings.Hence, the study investigated the sociodemographic characteristics and drug utilization patterns of CKD patients, focusing on WHO drug use indicators.Methods: This observational study was carried out in the Nephrology unit of Shree Birendra Hospital from February 2024 to July 2024 after Institutional Review Committee approval.The study employed census sampling in CKD patients.The study analyzed the data using descriptive statistics, focusing on sociodemographics, drug use patterns, prescribing indicators, and treatment adherence.Results: This study has 67 CKD patients with a mean age of 54 17.34 years and similar gender distribution 34 (50.7%) male, 33 (49.3%) female.The majority, i.e., 61 (91%) of patients were nonvegetarians.Stage V CKD requiring hemodialysis was common, with 82.1% hospitalization for pneumonia and anemia.Prescriptions contained an average of 4.76 drugs, with 5.95% prescribed by generic name, 15.36% injections, and 38.24% drugs from the National List of Essential Medicines.The most commonly prescribed drug group was calcium channel blockers (16.9%), and the common morbidity was hypertension (77.6%).Medication adherence was 80.6 and 89.6% of patients reported satisfactory disease management.Conclusion: Patients with CKD showed good treatment adherence with suboptimal generic prescribing and low compliance with the essential medicine list.The commonly used drugs are aligned with the common morbidity, with no evidence of polypharmacy.
Rajbhandari et al. (Tue,) studied this question.