Drug prescription patterns in osteoarthris patients in a tertiary care hospital in China.

The study was conducted to evaluate the prescription patterns of various agents for OA in a population specific cohort in Shandong Province, China. Data obtained from the Hospital Databases, which consisted of electronic medical records and prescription information. All the enrolled study subjects (n=212546) were having a clinically detected osteoarthritis (OA) during 2010-2015. Medicines prescription pattern was demonstrated using medication possession ratio (MPR), corresponding number of days administered with that particular medicine. The drugs examined comprised of analgesics (metamizole and paracetamol), oral and topical NSAIDs, cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2) inhibitors, opioids (fentanyl and tramadol) and symptomatic slow-acting drugs in osteoarthris (SYSADOA). The most generally employed regimen for the treatment OA was consisted of mainly three agents (53.5% OA patients). Most regularly used medicines (MPR >50%) were chondroitin (21%), glucosamine (16%) and oral NSAIDs (14%). Use of chondroitin, COX-2 inhibitors and opioids was increased beyond five years of tenure. However, frequency of all the other drugs was decreased. The combination-regimens could cause potential drug interactions, may impact the health of OA patients. In this study, the increment in the use of COX-2 inhibitors and opioids is substantial due to the effect on safety and prices of the medication.