Trends of Adverse Drug Reaction Reports in a Hospitalized Psychiatric Population: Exploring Prescriber Discontinuations as Potential Unreported Adverse Drug Events.

The review of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) is a safety mandate required by numerous organizations in the medication safety community. For adverse reactions to be properly reviewed, they must first be reported as potential events. There are notable challenges to ensure adequate and accurate reporting of ADRs that could be overcome if obstacles were better understood and addressed in a manner that is not punitive or threatening. Even reports of seemingly benign side effects might be valuable when considering the deleterious impact on medication adherence, notably in a psychiatric population. Our study examines the potential underreporting of adverse drug reactions that have been likely dismissed as expected side effects of medications. We underscore that there is a significant difference in what has been reported formally as an ADR and what should be reported based on the ability to identify prescribing changes that might be initiated in response to an ADR.