Sajesh Kalkandi Veettil1, Kingston Rajiah2, B R Suresh Kumar1. 1. Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of pharmacy practice, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trivandrum Medical College, Trivandrum, Kerala, India. 2. Deapartment of Pharmacy practice, Mallige College of Pharmacy, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Dear Editor,First and foremost we would like to thank for the valuable comments on the “study of drug utilization pattern for acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in patients attending a government hospital in Kerala, India.”[1] Many opinions mentioned in the letter were reasonable; of course should be deliberated. The primary concern was related to the use of the title “drug utilization pattern” instead of “prescription pattern” of drugs. This study was conducted in a Government hospital, and the drugs were provided free of cost during the inpatient admission. Moreover, it's a case of an exacerbation of COPD,[2] the drug's use were properly managed for the patients by the responsible health professionals. Because of these reasons, during the study period (until the patient was discharged from the hospital or to an upper limit of 7-day, whichever is earlier), we noticed that, all the patients were compliance to the prescribed medications. Hence, we did not consider how the patients were consuming those drugs, or whether any drugs were altered depending upon availability, or any doses were missed. Hence, we believe the term “drug utilization pattern” may applicable[3] for the mentioned study. Unfortunately, the above mentioned assumptions were not acknowledged in the methodological/result sections of the study.The demographic profile of the study population shows that most of the patients belonged to the lower socioeconomic status. But anywhere, in the study using this sample size, we didn’t conclude that people belonging to lower socioeconomic strata will have increased the prevalence of COPD. We have just shared the demographic profile of the sample involved in the study. In alternative point of view, it can be considered as the limitation of this work. Similarly, we presented the comorbid conditions as part to show the characteristics of patients involved in the study. We have considered only the drug utilization pattern for the treatment of acute exacerbation of COPD and noticed that there is no statistical difference between the drug utilization pattern for the patients with stated comorbid conditions and those without comorbidities. But, it can be specified in the result section.