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Shegena et al. | Journal of Clinical and Translational Research 2024; 10(3): 191-200 195

40 37
35
Number of patients 25 23 18 11 9 10
30
20
15
10
5 8 6 5 5 4 3 2
0 HIV DM PTB SLE
Hypertension CKD/ESRD/AKI Anemia CAP COPD Malaria Ischemic stroke Asthma Others

Figure 2. Common comorbid conditions among hospitalized heart failure patients at the Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital. The “others” category
includes alcoholic liver disease, hypothyroidism, thyrotoxicosis, deep vein thrombosis, pharyngitis, interstitial lung disease, cholecystitis, peptic
ulcer disease, cellulitis, and vitamin D deficiency.
Abbreviations: AKI: Acute kidney injury; CAP: Community-acquired pneumonia; CKD: Chronic kidney disease; COPD: Chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease; DM: Diabetes mellitus; ESRD: End-stage renal disease; HIV: Human immunodeficiency virus; PTB: Pulmonary tuberculosis;
SLE: Systemic lupus erythematosus.

30 28.3
27.2 Number of patients
% of patients
25 23 22 19.8
Number and % of patients 20 16 13.6

15
DTP 11 11.1
61 (51.7%) 57 (48.3%)
No DTP 10 9

0 5
Dosage too Needs Unnecessary Ineffective Dosage too
high additional drug therapy drug therapy low
drug therapy
Figure 4. Types of drug therapy problems related to cardiovascular
Figure 3. Prevalence of drug therapy problems related to cardiovascular agents among heart failure patients hospitalized at the Mbarara
agents among hospitalized heart failure patients at the Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital from November 2021 to January 2022.
Regional Referral Hospital from November 2021 to January 2022.
only assessed the DTP related to cardiovascular agents used by
4. Discussion
the hospitalized HF patients, while the other studies [26,28-30]
The primary aim of our study was to assess the prevalence assessed the DTP related to all drugs used by the HF patients.
of DTPs related to cardiovascular agents among HF patients. A study conducted in Spain reported a high prevalence of DTP,
Our findings revealed that 48.3% of the HF patients had at least but the prevalence of DTPs related specifically to HF medications
one DTP related to cardiovascular agents during their hospital was only 22% [31]. The discrepancy in prevalence with our
stay, indicating a significant prevalence of DTP among this findings could also be due to the different study populations,
patient population, which is comparable to the reported DTP sample sizes, inclusion criteria, and study designs; the studies
prevalence of 39.3% in a previous study in India [22]. However, conducted in Ethiopia had a larger sample size and used a cross-
the prevalence of DTPs related to cardiovascular agents is sectional study design; the study at TASH [30] was conducted
lower than the reported prevalence in previous prospective among HF patients who were in ambulatory care. Moreover,
observational studies conducted among hospitalized HF during this study, data collection period and clinical pharmacy
patients in Ethiopia, i.e., 91.3% [26] and 83.5% [28] in Jimma, residents were actively assessing and preventing DTPs among
90.6% [29] in Bahir Dar, and 68.8% [30] at the Tikur Anbessa noncommunicable diseased patients in the medical ward of
Specialized Hospital (TASH). The low prevalence of DTP in our our study site. Our study highlights the need to prioritize the
study may be attributed to our DTP assessment method which burden of DTPs and design an effective intervention to mitigate

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36922/jctr.23.00137