Prevalence and indication of gabapentin and pregabalin prescriptions among adults in King Abdulaziz Hospital in Makkah AL-Mukarramah, KSA

Gabapentin and pregabalin prescribing have increased substantially over the recent years. Some evidence supports that gabapentin and pregabalin use in non-neuropathic pain disorders indicates they are less effective than several other licensed non-opioid analgesics. On the other hand, other studies have shown that those drugs are to be beneficial in the treatment of non-neuropathic pain and improves the analgesic efficacy of opioids both at rest and in movement, reduces analgesic consumption and opioid-related adverse effects. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate the rate of their prescriptions as well as monitoring and checking any severe side effects. The study is aimed at identifying the rate and the indications of gabapentin and pregabalin prescriptions at King Abdul-Aziz (Alzaher) Hospital-Makkah. A cross-sectional study was conducted from medical records of in-patients and outpatients clinics from January, 2018 through January, 2019. Data analysis was performed using SPSS and Prism 5.0 softwares. A total of 1197 prescriptions were reviewed. Pregabalin prescriptions rate were higher than gabapentin specifically in outpatients clinics (P<0.05). Females showed higher rates of using both gabapentin and pregabalin than males (P<0.05). In general there was a high rate of gabapentin and pregabalin prescriptions. Further studies need to be done to evaluate the most serious side effects and to control the safety of these prescriptions as well as preventing their misuse. Key words: Gabapentin, Pregabalin,Indications, Off label.