Glaucoma Drug Prescription Pattern in North India: Public vs Private Sector Hospitals

Materials a n d MethodsThis cross-sectional, prospective chart review was conducted in glaucoma clinics of a tertiary care, government sector hospital (group I) and a tertiary care, private sector hospital (group II) from June 2023 to July 2023.The study followed the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki, 1964.introduction Drug utiliz ation studies are a critical component of pharmacoepidemiology and are a real-world indicator of prescription patterns.The analysis of prescriptions helps promote the rational use of drugs and minimize their misuse. 1 Medical management is the mainstay of glaucoma therapy, with several antiglaucoma drugs available, with innumerable brand names, at varying costs.][4][5][6] Even though polypharmacy is considered a major predictor of irrational drug use, several glaucoma patients require more than one drug, especially with increasing duration and severity of disease. 7,8This affects all aspects of glaucoma management: quality of life, side effects, compliance, and economics.Despite this, drug utilization studies in glaucoma are few. 9-12To the best of our knowledge, there are no drug utilization studies in glaucoma that compare the prescription patterns of private and public hospitals in developing countries such as India.Therefore, this study was carried out to determine and compare the prescription patterns in the real-world setting in two glaucoma clinics in North India: one in a public sector, state-sponsored tertiary care center, and the second in a tertiary care private hospital in the same region.