title: Drug therapy of epileptic seizures among adult epileptic outpatients of University of Gondar Referral and Teaching Hospital, Gondar, North West Ethiopia.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to assess the practice of pharmacotherapy of epilepsy and its treatment outcomes in adult epileptic outpatients at the University of Gondar Referral and Teaching Hospital, Gondar, North West Ethiopia.
  
  
  METHODS
  An institution based, retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted from the medical charts of 336 adult epileptic patients at the outpatient epileptic clinic of Neurology Department of University of Gondar Teaching Hospital from May 2014 to April 2015. Reviewing follow-up information from the medical charts was used to evaluate antiepileptic drug (AED) prescribing patterns and treatment outcome. Data were collected by using data collection format and analyzed using SPSS software version 16.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The most common type of seizure diagnosed was generalized tonic-clonic seizure (n=245, 72.91%). Monotherapy with an AED accounted for 80.35% of the cases, whereas dual therapy and polytherapy with three AED combinations accounted for 16.37% and 3.28%, respectively. The most frequently prescribed AED was phenobarbitone (62.47%) followed by carbamazepine (17.91%). From the total epileptic cases, 277 (82.4%) had well-controlled seizure status in the last three consecutive months.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Most of the patients were maintained by monotherapy, and largely this was by the older antiepileptic drug, phenobarbitone. Considering the development of pharmacotherapy of epilepsy and other patient related factors, the standard treatment guideline for Ethiopia needs to be revised periodically.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Eshetie Melese
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Birru
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy, Health Science College, Mizan-Tepi University, Mizan Aman, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Miftah
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shafi
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Mestayet
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Geta
keywords: antiepileptics; epilepsy; prescription patterns; treatment outcomes