Antihypertensive Medications at Umaru Musa Yar-Adua Memorial Hospital Sabon Wuse, Niger State

Abstract: Hypertension remains one of the leading causes of death and its prevalence ranges from 12.4% to 34.8% in Nigeria. Pharmacotherapy of hypertension involves the use of various classes of medications aimed at lowering blood pressure to reduce the risk of cardiovascular complications hence, the need for rational drug use. This work aimed to evaluate the prescription patterns of antihypertensive drugs among patients attending Umar Musa Yaradua Memorial Hospital Sabon wuse in Niger State, Nigeria. The study was a descriptive retrospective assessment of prescriptions of adult patients containing one or more antihypertensive drug that visited the hospital from January to December 2023. Data were collected using data collection form and analyzed using simple tabulation. A total of 24,663 prescriptions were evaluated where only 510 (2.1%) were found to contain antihypertensive drugs. Only 68 (13.3%) of the hypertensive patients consistently follow up their medication pick-ups throughout the year, with a male-to-female ratio close to 1:1. Among these patients, 261 drugs were reviewed, averaging 3.8 drugs per encounter. Calcium channel blockers were the most commonly prescribed class of antihypertensive medications, utilized predominantly as monotherapy (52.6%) and in combination with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors. The most common combination therapy consisted of two drugs (36.8), followed by three drugs (25%) and four drugs (10.3%). This study noted that the most commonly prescribed antihypertensive class for patients in the Hospital were the calcium channel blockers as monotherapy and in some cases in combination with other antihypertensive drugs.