gms | German Medical Science

23rd Annual Meeting of the German Drug Utilisation Research Group (GAA)

Gesellschaft für Arzneimittelanwendungsforschung und Arzneimittelepidemiologie

24.11. - 25.11.2016, Bochum

Analysis of drug-drug interactions in a neurological department – results of an interdisciplinary one-year pilot project

Meeting Abstract

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Gesellschaft für Arzneimittelanwendungsforschung und Arzneimittelepidemiologie e.V. (GAA). 23. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Arzneimittelanwendungsforschung und Arzneimittelepidemiologie. Bochum, 24.-25.11.2016. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2016. Doc16gaa15

doi: 10.3205/16gaa15, urn:nbn:de:0183-16gaa156

Published: November 23, 2016

© 2016 Lennartz et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


Outline

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Background: Comorbidity, polypharmacy and old age are common characteristics among neurological patients. The aim of this project was to assess the prevalence and determinants of potential drug-drug interactions in neurological patients in order to identify patients at risk and thus to improve patient safety.

Materials and Methods: The project was initialized in January 2015. An interdisciplinary weekly conference was established in which a pharmacist and the attending physicians took part. The medications of selected patients were analyzed regarding drug-drug interaction and adverse drug reactions. Using the ABDA database drug-drug interactions were divided into eight groups concerning their severity. If necessary, possible alternatives were discussed. A signed documentation of the results was added to the patient’s file.

Results: The medications of 114 patients (f60, m54) were analyzed. The mean age of the patients was 71 years. A total of 1209 drugs were prescribed with a mean of 10,6 drugs per patient. We found a total of 291 drug-drug interactions with a range from level 8 (generally no measures necessary) to level 3 (severe effects possible – as a precaution contraindicated).

Conclusion: The involvement of a clinical pharmacist in combination with a fixed form of communication (weekly conferences) resulted in the detection of a considerable number of drug-drug interactions in this sample size. In addition to that, decision pathways for some frequent drug combinations were developed on the basis of our gained experiences. Furthermore we assume that as a consequence of learning effects among the participants of this project, typical patterns of drug-drug interactions and potential adverse drug reactions can be avoided in the future.