"Drug-Drug Interactions and Prescription Appropriateness in COVID-19 ICU Patients in a Tertiary Care Hospitalâ€

With the investigational therapies and in addition to specific therapy for COVID-19 patients; the overall pharmacological burden may pose an extremely high risk of potential drug drug interactons (pDDIs), prescription inappropriate medications (PIMs) and drug specific adverse events. Therefore an optimized and safer prescription practice in multiple co-morbid conditions and older individuals is often a difficult task.

However, to address these issues, various computerized prescriptions support systems have been developed and one such is INTERCheck® which stores information on explicit criteria for PIMs, anticholinergic load, potential DDIs, dose adjustment in cases of renal impairment and modality for drug withdrawals (dose tapering). With limited data in Indian context which addresses the burden of DDIs and PIMs in COVID-19 ICU patients, the present study aims to evaluate the pattern of DDIs, pharmacological burden and PIMs upon admission and during hospitalization.