BACKGROUND: Medication-related visits to the emergency department are an important but poorly understood phenomenon. We sought to evaluate the frequency, severity and preventability of drug-related visits to the emergency department. METHODS: We performed a prospective observational study of randomly selected adults presenting to the emergency department over a 12-week period. Emergency department visits were identified as drug-related on the basis of assessment by a pharmacist research assistant and an emergency physician; discrepancies were adjudicated by 2 independent reviewers. RESULTS: Among the 1017 patients included in the study, the emergency department visit was identified as drug-related for 122 patients (12.0%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 10.1%-14.2%); of these, 83 visits (68.0%, 95% CI 59.0%-76.2%) were deemed preventable. Severity was classified as mild in 15.6% of the 122 cases, moderate in 74.6% and severe in 9.8%. The most common reasons for drug-related visits were adverse drug reactions (39.3%), nonadherence (27.9%) and use of the wrong or suboptimal drug (11.5%). The probability of admission was significantly higher among patients who had a drug-related visit than among those whose visit was not drug-related (OR 2.18, 95% CI 1.46-3.27, p < 0.001), and among those admitted, the median length of stay was longer (8.0 [interquartile range 23.5] v. 5.5 [interquartile range 10.0] days, p = 0.06). INTERPRETATION: More than 1 in 9 emergency department visits are due to drug-related adverse events, a potentially preventable problem in our health care system.
BACKGROUND: Medication-related visits to the emergency department are an important but poorly understood phenomenon. We sought to evaluate the frequency, severity and preventability of drug-related visits to the emergency department. METHODS: We performed a prospective observational study of randomly selected adults presenting to the emergency department over a 12-week period. Emergency department visits were identified as drug-related on the basis of assessment by a pharmacist research assistant and an emergency physician; discrepancies were adjudicated by 2 independent reviewers. RESULTS: Among the 1017 patients included in the study, the emergency department visit was identified as drug-related for 122 patients (12.0%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 10.1%-14.2%); of these, 83 visits (68.0%, 95% CI 59.0%-76.2%) were deemed preventable. Severity was classified as mild in 15.6% of the 122 cases, moderate in 74.6% and severe in 9.8%. The most common reasons for drug-related visits were adverse drug reactions (39.3%), nonadherence (27.9%) and use of the wrong or suboptimal drug (11.5%). The probability of admission was significantly higher among patients who had a drug-related visit than among those whose visit was not drug-related (OR 2.18, 95% CI 1.46-3.27, p < 0.001), and among those admitted, the median length of stay was longer (8.0 [interquartile range 23.5] v. 5.5 [interquartile range 10.0] days, p = 0.06). INTERPRETATION: More than 1 in 9 emergency department visits are due to drug-related adverse events, a potentially preventable problem in our health care system.
Authors: Jerry H Gurwitz; Terry S Field; Leslie R Harrold; Jeffrey Rothschild; Kristin Debellis; Andrew C Seger; Cynthia Cadoret; Leslie S Fish; Lawrence Garber; Michael Kelleher; David W Bates Journal: JAMA Date: 2003-03-05 Impact factor: 56.272
Authors: Munir Pirmohamed; Sally James; Shaun Meakin; Chris Green; Andrew K Scott; Thomas J Walley; Keith Farrar; B Kevin Park; Alasdair M Breckenridge Journal: BMJ Date: 2004-07-03
Authors: Alan J Forster; Heather D Clark; Alex Menard; Natalie Dupuis; Robert Chernish; Natasha Chandok; Asmat Khan; Carl van Walraven Journal: CMAJ Date: 2004-02-03 Impact factor: 8.262
Authors: G Ross Baker; Peter G Norton; Virginia Flintoft; Régis Blais; Adalsteinn Brown; Jafna Cox; Ed Etchells; William A Ghali; Philip Hébert; Sumit R Majumdar; Maeve O'Beirne; Luz Palacios-Derflingher; Robert J Reid; Sam Sheps; Robyn Tamblyn Journal: CMAJ Date: 2004-05-25 Impact factor: 8.262
Authors: María Isabel Baena; Paloma C Fajardo; Antonio Pintor-Mármol; M José Faus; Rosario Marín; Antonio Zarzuelo; José Martínez-Olmos; Fernando Martínez-Martínez Journal: Eur J Clin Pharmacol Date: 2013-10-03 Impact factor: 2.953