Prescribing Profile and Potential Drug Interactions in Tuberculosis Patients with Diabetes Mellitus Comorbidity at the Outpatient Pharmacy Installation of Hermina Podomoro Hospital

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major public health problem in Indonesia, and diabetes mellitus (DM) comorbidity is associated with increased susceptibility to active TB and with the potential for clinically relevant interactions between anti-tuberculosis drugs (ATDs) and antidiabetic agents. Institution-specific data describing prescribing patterns and interaction risk among TB-DM patients remain limited, including at private hospitals such as Hermina Podomoro. This study aimed to describe the prescribing profile and potential drug interactions among TB-DM outpatients at Hermina Podomoro Hospital, and to examine the association between patient factors (sex, age, and number of concurrently prescribed drugs) and interaction severity. A descriptive-analytic study with a retrospective approach was conducted using medical records of 52 TB-DM outpatients selected through total sampling. Potential drug interactions were identified using the Medscape Drug Interaction Checker and Drugs.com, and associations were examined using the chi-square test (p < 0.05). All patients had at least one potential ATD-antidiabetic interaction, predominantly of moderate severity (76.9%), with no major interactions identified; the most frequent combination was an ATD with a sulfonylurea (25.0%). The number of concurrently prescribed drugs was significantly associated with interaction severity (p = 0.003), whereas sex (p = 0.417) and age (p = 0.239) were not. These findings suggest that, in this population, interaction risk may be more closely related to regimen complexity than to demographic factors; however, the retrospective, single-center design limits generalizability, and the findings should be interpreted with appropriate caution. Routine pharmacist-led medication review is recommended to support safe TB-DM pharmacotherapy.