Background: The appropriate use of cardiovascular drugs in patients had been shown to decrease the risk associated with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. To evaluate the prescribing patterns according to essential drug list and identify any potential drug interactions in the prescriptions. A total of 850 prescriptions were analysed for drug utilisation for a period of 6 months. Socio demographic details of the subjects, disease patterns in the study population, drug utilisation patterns according to essential drug list, distribution of adverse drug interactions, drug therapy problems, average number of drug interactions per prescription were evaluated.