Bright et al.: Drug Information QueriesDrug information centers have been established to provide unbiased information to healthcare workers and patients. The pattern of drug information queries received and answered by the drug information centre in a tertiary care teaching hospital in South India was assessed. Prospectively documented drug information queries, received and answered by the drug information centre over a 15-month period, were reviewed retrospectively for various parameters including status of the requestor, mode of receipt, mode of reply, type of query, purpose of query and references used. A total of 2010 queries were received and answered during the study period. Queries were received mainly from physicians (41 %), followed by nurses (n=595; 30 %) and pharmacists (n=462; 23 %). Dentists, students and healthcare professionals from outside the institution accounted for 139 (6 %) queries. Internet-based resource was the main reference source (n=952; 47 %) followed by textbooks, intranet resources and journals. Patient care-related queries were the most common. The information sought included product identification (22 %), drug dose or schedule (16 %), product availability (13 %), drug of choice/therapeutic alternatives/therapeutic use (10 %), product information (10 %), drug use in special populations and administration (6 % each), compatibility/stability/storage (5 %) and adverse reactions (4 %). The drug information centre in a teaching hospital handles a wide range of queries from various healthcare workers, meets specific healthcare needs and serves as a valuable source of drug information. The impact of this service on improving patient care and minimizing errors warrants further study.

Background: Cisplatin is a commonly used chemotherapy agent known to induce serious adverse reactions that may require hospital readmission. We aimed to analyze the extent and factors associated with unplanned hospital admissions due to cisplatin-based chemotherapy regimen-induced adverse reactions. Methods: Retrospective review of medical records of those patients who received at least one cycle of chemotherapy with cisplatin-based regimen during a six-month period from March to August 2017. Results: Of the 458 patients who received cisplatin during the study period, 142 patients did not meet inclusion criteria. The remaining 316 patients had a total of 770 episodes of primary admissions for chemotherapy administration. Overall, 187 episodes (24%) of intercycle unplanned hospital admission were recorded of which a major proportion (n=178; 23%) was due to chemotherapy-induced adverse reactions. Underweight patients had higher odds of unplanned admission (OR 1.77, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.11 to 1.77). Significantly, more number of patients with cancers of head and neck and cancers of musculoskeletal were readmitted (p<0.001). Compared to high-dose cisplatin, low- and intermediate-dose cisplatin had lesser odds of unplanned admission (OR 0.52 and 0.77; 95% CI, 0.31 to 0.88 and 0.41 to 1.45, respectively). Patients without concomitant radiotherapy, drug-drug interaction and initial chemotherapy cycles had lesser odds of unplanned admission (OR 0.38, 0.50 and 0.52; 95% CI, 0.26 to 0.55, 0.25 to 0.99 and 0.32 to 0.84 respectively). Unplanned admissions were mainly due to blood-related (31%) and gastrointestinal (19%) adverse reactions. Among chemotherapy regimens, cisplatin monotherapy (34%) and cisplatin with doxorubicin (20%) regimens resulted in a major proportion of unplanned admissions. Conclusion: These findings highlight risk factors that help identify high-risk patients and suggest that therapy modifications may reduce hospital readmissions due to cisplatin-based chemotherapy-induced adverse reactions.

BACKGROUND: The concept of listing essential medicines can lead to improved supply and access, more rational prescribing, and lower costs of drugs. However, these benefits hinge on the prescription of drugs from an Essential Medicines List (EML). Several studies have highlighted the problem of underutilization of EMLs by prescribers. Therefore, as part of prescription research by the Indian Council of Medical Research-Rational Use of Medicines Centres Network, we evaluated the extent of prescription of drugs not listed in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Prescriptions of outpatients from participating centers were included after obtaining verbal/written informed consent as approved by the Ethics Committee, and evaluated for prescription of drugs from the NLEM 2015. RESULTS: Analysis of 4838 prescriptions from 13 tertiary health-care institutes revealed that 2677 (55.33%) prescriptions had at least one non-NLEM drug prescribed. In all, 5215 (31.12%) of the total 16,758 drugs prescribed were not in NLEM. Of these, 2722 (16.24%) were single drugs and 2493 (14.88%) were fixed-dose combinations (FDCs). These comprised 700 different drug products – 346 single drugs and 354 FDCs. The average number of non-NLEM drugs prescribed per prescription was 1.08, while the average number of all drugs prescribed was 3.35 per prescription. It was also found that some of the non-NLEM drugs prescribed had the potential to result in increased cost (for example, levocetirizine), increased adverse effects (dextromethorphan), and less effectiveness (losartan) when compared to their NLEM counterparts. Nonavailability of an essential drug (oral hydroxocobalamin) was another important finding of our study. CONCLUSION: This study highlights the extent and pattern of drugs prescribed from outside the NLEM at the tertiary health-care level and the need for training and enhanced awareness among prescribers for greater utilization of the NLEM.

OBJECTIVE: The rational use of medicines as per the World Health Organization (WHO) should be practiced globally. However, data regarding the completeness of the prescriptions and their rational use is lacking from developing countries like India. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess the prescribing patterns of drugs and completeness of prescriptions as per WHO core drug use and complementary indicators to provide real-life examples for the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) online prescribing skill course for medical graduates. METHODS: Prescriptions of the patients, fulfilling inclusion criteria, attending Outpatient Departments of various specialties of tertiary care hospitals, were collected by thirteen ICMR Rational use of medicines centers located in tertiary care hospitals, throughout India. Prescriptions were evaluated for rational use of medicines according to the WHO guidelines and for appropriateness as per standard treatment guidelines using a common protocol approved by local Ethics committees. RESULTS: Among 4838 prescriptions, an average of about three drugs (3.34) was prescribed to the patients per prescription. Polypharmacy was noted in 83.05% of prescriptions. Generic drugs were prescribed in 47.58% of the prescriptions. Further, antimicrobials were prescribed in 17.63% of the prescriptions and only 4.98% of prescriptions were with injectables. During the prescription evaluation, 38.65% of the prescriptions were incomplete due to multiple omissions such as dose, duration, and formulation. CONCLUSION: Most of the parameters in the present study were out of the range of WHO-recommended prescribing indicators. Therefore, effective intervention program, like training, for the promotion of rational drug use practice was recommended to improve the prescribing pattern of drugs and the quality of prescriptions all over the country.