Objective  

Since irrational use of antihypertensives has considerable clinical and economical consequences, this study was conducted to evaluate antihypertensive drug utilization in hypertension at seven State Health Centres in Istanbul.

Method  

A total of 297 hypertensive patients who accepted to␣participate in the study were evaluated by a face-to-face questionnaire and a copy of their prescriptions were collected for prescription analysis.

Results  

Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors (31.7%), calcium channel blockers (28.8%), diuretics (16.2%), beta blockers (7.5%) and others (15.8%) have been prescribed. There were no statistically significant relation between prescribed antihypertensive drug groups and gender, age, and NSAIDs co-prescribing. The most frequent comorbidity in hypertensive patients was diabetes mellitus (10.4%) and calcium channel blockers (35.5%) have been prescribed to them as a first antihypertensive medication. Average cost per prescription was $ 42.7±38.1. According to the patients’ self-reporting, the majority of them (85%) were prescribed without a physical examination. The physicians failed to write the prescriptions appropriately; only 5% of the scripts contained all information about the drug(s) and use instructions in full format.

Conclusion  

The present study indicates that GPs working at primary healthcare centres were rational in terms of antihypertensive drug choice. However, they poorly applied rational pharmacotherapy principles such as (a) writing a “good” prescription which is easily readable by the pharmacist and the patient and that contains full essential information; (b) a medical examination of the patient to assess her/his current clinical condition; and (c) taking care of not prescribing drugs with potential interaction like antihypertensives and NSAIDs together.