Pharmaceutical intervention assessment in the identification and management of drug interactions in an intensive care unit

Abstract

It is estimated there are thousands of combinations of drugs, which may generate various adverse drug events, including drug interactions (DI). To assess the contribution of pharmacist to identification and management of DI in an intensive care unit (ICU). A longitudinal study was conducted in the ICU of a private hospital in the city of Aracaju-SE, between 2008 and 2009. The prevalence and clinical relevance of DI was assessed by two clinical pharmacists. Demographic data and clinical information of patients hospitalized in the period of the study were obtained from medical records. At the end of the study 137 medical records were analyzed, with a predominance of female patients (55.4%), average age of 66 (±7.0) years. 6,085 prescriptions were collected during the study period, in which 2,455 drugs prescribed. Of these, 175 prescriptions contained clinically relevant DI, 178 of moderate severity and 35 of major severity, 213 DI in total. The clinical pharmacists prepared reports for the physicians, which enabled the reduction of 40% of all DI. Data from this study suggest that pharmacist’s contribution may have reduced the incidence of DI, providing more familiarity of physicians on clinically relevant information and improving the quality of prescriptions in the ICU.