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Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the potential drug interactions (pDIs) among hospitalized patients in cardiac and neurology wards in 3 tertiary care hospitals. Methods: A prospective, observational study was carried out for a period of 12 mo. A sample of 1330 patients was assessed for pDDIs using Micromedex ® -2.7and drugs.com and www.dugs.com. Results: A total of 1330 patients were analyzed and it was found that 685 were cardiac and 645 were neurology patients. The study identified 524 (76.49%) cardiac patients and 425 (65.89%) neurology patients, with potential drug-drug interactions (pDDIs) higher in male cardiac [298 (56.87%)] and male neurology [235 (55.29%)] patients, compared to females. Incidences of pDDIs were found to be higher in the age group of 60-70 y in cardiac [193 (36.83%)] and neurology [165 (38.84%)] patients and incidences of interactions based on duration of (4-6 d) hospital stays in cardiac were 380 (72.53%) and 275 (64.70%) in neurology patients respectively. Moreover, 51.90% cardiac patients and 57.41% neurology patients were found to be prescribed with more number of drugs in cardiac and neurology (7 drugs) patients, were found to have developed higher incidences of pDDIs. The most common drug interacting pair was between aspirin and clopidogrel combination, observed in 245 cardiac and 316 in neurology patients. Drug-food interactions (DFIs) were found with between atorvastatin-citrus fruits in cardiac and phenytoin-protein rich foods in neurology patients. The most common drug-disease interaction (D-DIs) was found to between isosorbide dinitrate–myocardial infarction in cardiac and carbamazepine-seizuresin neurology respectively. Conclusion: It is recommended that physicians should be aware of the interactions among those drugs while prescribing, and careful monitoring is also required.

Objectives: In India, a study on hypertension (HTN) prevalence conducted in a community over a period of 3–6 decades showed an increase of 30% in urban population and 10% in rural population. The study aimed to assess the prevalence of HTN and pre-HTN in a rural community and also to find the significance of risk factors which precipitate to it.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in a rural community of Salem district, Tamil Nadu, India. HTN and pre-HTN was defined by the Joint National Committee 8th report guidelines. Patient data’s (sociodemographic variables, lifestyle factors, and medical reports) were collected with the help of questionnaire. Identified hypertensive patients were assessed with MMAS-8 questionnaire.Results: During the study period of 8 months, 425 subjects were screened and studied for HTN and pre-HTN. More than half (69.4%) of the study group were found to be hypertensive. Of the 295 reported cases, 228 (53.6% of 425) were “known” cases of HTN and 67 (15.8% of 425) were newly diagnosed cases. A positive association (p

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the potential drug interactions among hospitalized patients in cardiac and pulmonary wards in three tertiary care hospitals.Methods: A prospective, observational study was carried out for 12 months. A sample of 1150 patients were assessed for potential drug-drug interactions (pDDIs) using Micromedex®- 2.7 and Drugs.com.Results: A total of 1150 patients were analyzed, and it was found that 685 were cardiac and 465 were pulmonary patients. The study identified 524 (76.49%) cardiac patients and 345 (74.19%) pulmonary patients, with pDDIs higher in male cardiac (298 [56.87%]) and male pulmonary (199 [57.68%]) patients, compared to females. Incidences of pDDIs were found to be higher in the age group of 60–70 years in cardiac (193 [36.83%]) and pulmonary (146 [42.31%]) patients and incidences of interactions based on duration of 4–6 days’ hospital stays in cardiac were 380 (72.53%) and 215 (62.31%) in pulmonary patients, respectively. Moreover, 51.90% of cardiac patients and 56.52% of pulmonary patients were found to be prescribed with more number of drugs (cardiac 7 drugs and pulmonary 5–6 drugs) causing higher incidences of pDDIs. Some of the most common drug interacting pair was aspirin and clopidogrel combination observed in 245 cardiac patients, whereas in the pulmonary department, it was ranitidine-theophylline combination with a frequency of 195 pDDIs. Drug-food interactions were found with atorvastatin–citrus fruits in cardiac and theophylline–caffeine in pulmonary patients. The most common drug-disease interaction was found to be isosorbide dinitrate–myocardial infarction in cardiac and diazepam–COPD in pulmonary, respectively.Conclusion: Pharmacists must take responsibility in the monitoring of drug interactions and notifying the physician and patient about potential problems. With their detailed knowledge of drugs, pharmacists have the ability to relate unexpected symptoms experienced by patients to possible adverse effects of their drug therapy.

Accurate damping of inter-area and intra area oscillations are very much critical in the stability of electric power system. Power system stabilizer (PSS) is mainly used as auxiliary controllers to damp out the low frequency oscillations in the area of electric power system. The tuning of Conventional Power System Stabilizer (CPSS) for a nonlinear power system should be robust such that overall system stability can be improved under several operating points. Today's scenario, various populations based heuristic algorithms are available to minimize the effect of stability problem by properly tuning the parameters of CPSS. In this paper presents a new heuristic population based optimization technique named as Group Search Optimization (GSO) algorithm to tune the PSS parameters for a multi-machine system for different operating conditions. The importance of the GSO algorithm is evaluated and compared for damping the system oscillations during small and large disturbances, and their robustness is illustrated using the transient signal analysis.