Abstract
Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a major public health problem in developing countries. Drug utilization study of antidiabetic drugs is of paramount importance to promote rational drug use in patients with DM and to make available valuable information for the health-care team.

Aims & Objective: To determine the prescription pattern of drugs used in the treatment of patients with type 2 DM in outpatient general clinics of Hyderabad.

Materials and Methods: A retrospective study was carried out by evaluating 600 prescriptions of antidiabetic drugs over a period of 2 month obtained from pharmacy database of five general family clinics. The study assessed prescribing pattern for six classes of antidiabetic drugs: insulin, biguanides, sulfonylureas, glitazones, α-glucosidase inhibitors, and dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors.

Results: Of 600 prescriptions evaluated, 349 were of male patients and 251 were of female patients. Frequency of use of antidiabetic drugs as monotherapy was 74.5% and as combination therapy was 24.5%. As monotherapy, sulfonylureas (33%) were the highly prescribed class of antidiabetic drugs followed by biguanides (20%), insulins (11.3%), α-glucosidase inhibitors (4.8%), DPP-4 inhibitors (4%), and glitazones (1.1%). Among individual drugs, metformin (20%) and glimepiride (16.6%) were the maximum prescribed drugs. As combination therapy, metformin + glimepiride (9.3%) and metformin + voglibose (3.8%) are the most commonly prescribed two-drug combinations, and metformin + voglibose + insulin (1.1%) is the most popular three-drug combination.

Conclusion: Sulfonylureas was the most commonly prescribed drug class for patients with type 2 DM followed by biguanides. Major limitations of this work include its retrospective nature and the inability to determine the actual patient adherence to therapy.

Key words: Diabetes mellitus; Antidiabetic drugs; Sulfonylureas; Biguanides