Abstract:
Background: Patients with psychiatric disorder are at high risk of drug related problems, as they are
prone to receive multiple medications. Drug related problems frequently occur in modern practice,
cause considerable patient morbidity and mortality as well as increasing health care cost. In Ethiopia,
drug related problems in psychiatric patients, as well as associated factors are not well studied.
Objectives: This study was aimed to determine prevalence of drug related problems and identify
associated factors among psychiatric patients admitted to psychiatric ward of Jimma University
Medical Center; Jimma, Southwest Ethiopia; 2018.
Method: A hospital based prospective observational study was conducted among psychiatric patients
admitted to Jimma University Medical Center from March01 to August 30, 2018. A structured data
collection tool were used to collect patient‘s specific data. Bivariate and multivariate logistic
regression analysis was performed to identify the associated factors of drug related problems.
Result: A total of 135 study participants were included for analysis. Among the total in
100(74.1%) patients developed drug related problems. The average number of drug related
problems were 1.61. The most commonly identified drug related problems, were need additional
drug therapy 51(31.7%), ineffective drug therapy 35(21.7%), and adverse drug reactions 30
(18.6%). Factors independently associated with drug related problems were duration of treatment
(>3 years) (AOR=18.2, 95% CI; 2.0-62.0), cigarette smoking (AOR=6.8, CI; 1.1-42.4), and polypharmacy (AOR=8.84, 95% CI; 1.46-23.5).Participants who resided in rural area had 68% lower
than from those who resided in urban area (AOR=0.32, 95%CI; 0.10-0.98).
Conclusion and recommendation: Drug related problems were considerable among admitted
psychiatric patient. Initiation of additional drug therapy, ineffective drug therapy, and adverse
drug reactions were commonly identified drug related problems. In response to this finding,
tailored future intervention that target in prevention and resolution of those problems could be
vital.
