[Drug related problems as a cause of hospital admission].
BACKGROUND
The goals of the present study were: a) to identify and characterize drug-related problems (adverse drug reactions, non-compliance and intentional overdose) leading to admissions to our hospital (Hospital Clínic) through the Emergency Department, b) to know the most frequently involved medications, c) to identify risk factors for hospital admissions due to drug-related problems, and d) to determine the avoidability of these admissions.


METHODS
Prospective study carried out from August 1999 to November 1999 and from January 2000 to May 2000. The study included 1,800 admissions corresponding to 1,663 patients.


RESULTS
Including definitive, probable and possible cases, 215 hospital admissions (11.9%) were drug-related ones. Of these cases, 108 (50.2%) corresponded to adverse drug reactions, 100 (46.5%) to dose-related therapeutic failures (mainly non-compliance) and 7 (3.3%) corresponded to intentional overdose. When 'possible' cases were excluded in order to achieve a better defined causative relationship, drug-related admissions dropped to 139 (7.7%). According to Schumock and Thornton criteria, 68.4% hospital admissions due to drug-related problems were considered 'avoidable'. Most avoidable admissions were due to non-compliance, absence of preventive therapy and inappropriate monitoring.


CONCLUSIONS
Hospital admissions due to drug-related problems are frequent and often preventable.
Martín
María Teresa
MT
Servicio de Farmacia, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Spain. mmartin@clinic.ub.es
Codina
Carles
C
Tuset
Montserrat
M
Carné
Xavier
X
Nogué
Santiago
S
Ribas
Josep
J
D000368:Aged; D064420:Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies