A Retrospective Analysis on the Pharmacological Management of Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Objectives: To analyze the pattern of drugs prescribed to treat irritable bowel syndrome among patients admitted in a tertiary care teaching hospital. Materials and Methods: A retrospective study was carried out among 120 inpatients of the general medicine department for a period of eight months from August 2019 to April 2020. The data of the patients admitted to the hospital over a period of five years was collected from the medical records department in a specially designed data collection form. The prescription pattern of the drugs used in the management of irritable bowel syndrome was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: Among 120 patients, n=68 were diagnosed with inflammatory bowel syndrome (IBS)-D, n=30 with IBS-M and n=22 diagnosed with IBS-C. The occurrence of irritable bowel syndrome was higher in males (55%) than in females (45%). The most common clinical presentation was found to be abdominal pain, reported among 63.33% of the total patients. Probiotics were the most widely prescribed medications n=73(14.39%), followed by pantoprazole n=65(12.82%). Conclusion: In the study, movement modulators followed by adjunctive gastrointestinal agents, psychoactive substances and antibiotics were commonly prescribed for the management of irritable bowel syndrome. Key words: IBS, Pharmacotherapy, Abdominal pain, Colonoscopy, Probiotics.