Abstract
Prescription filling in powder form is performed in community pharmacy practice to adjust dose for children and patients who cannot swallow whole tablet. However, there are few reports regarding the stability of the active ingredient and possible microbial growth after the medication is dispensed to powder form. This study examined the stability of atenolol, an antihypertensive agent, and microbial growth in the unit dose pouches dispensed at twenty-one community pharmacies located in Taegu area. Randomly chosen first unit dose pouch contained 77.4% of the prescribed dose of the drug and there were only four community pharmacies that dispensed the drug within 10% deviation from the dose prescribed by physician. Surprisingly, there were three community pharmacies that dispensed the drug with greater than 40% deviation, which may pose a major concern regarding the efficacy and safety of the drug prescribed for the treatment of hypertension. Atenolol content during a month did not indicate significant change, showing 5.4%, 4.3%, and 3.3% of decrease in 50%, 80%, and 90% relative humidity conditions, respectively. Microbiological examination during a month showed less than 0.5 microorganism in high power field (hpf) in all the relative humidity conditions tested. Based on this study, pharmacy practice in community pharmacy needs to be rigorously regulated to ensure that the dose of the prescribed drug is properly incorporated into the unit dose pouch dispensed as powder form.
