RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Drug information center: challenges of the research process to answer inquiries in hospital pharmaceutical practices
JF European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy
JO Eur J Hosp Pharm
FD British Medical Journal Publishing Group
SP ejhpharm-2017-001417
DO 10.1136/ejhpharm-2017-001417
A1 Damiana da Rocha Vianna Flôres
A1 Alexandre Augusto de Toni Sartori
A1 Julia Borges Antunes
A1 Alessandra Nunes Pinto
A1 Julia Pletsch
A1 Tatiane da Silva Dal Pizzol
YR 2018
UL http://ejhp.bmj.com/content/early/2018/03/22/ejhpharm-2017-001417.abstract
AB Objective To characterise information requests (IRs) from hospitals received by a drug information center (DIC-RS) according to the resolution of the inquiries.Method The sample consisted of all requestors and their respective IRs registered in the DIC-RS database from January 2012 to December 2016. Request without information in the consulted literature (RWI) were categorised according to the institution of origin. IRs from hospitals were classified by the information source, topic and subtopic of the questions, and the number of drugs and the pharmacological or therapeutic group.Results A total of 2,500 IRs were analysed. Of those, 25% did not exhibit conclusive information in the consulted sources. RWI from hospitals represented 51% of all RWI, followed by those from community pharmacies (13%) and health centres (9%). Tertiary literature was the most commonly used source (73%) for IRs from hospitals. The greatest difficulties in finding information were related to off-label drug administration and indication issues (52% of RWI). The most common type of off-label use was related to changes in the original pharmaceutical form of the drug. Furthermore, 61% of RWI were directed at a specific drug, mostly systemic anti-infectives.Conclusion We found that a quarter of the answers did not exhibit conclusive information in the consulted sources. Answers to IRs from the hospital environment exhibited the greatest extent of limited information, and off-label use was responsible for most cases.