[Drug therapy orphans: the administration of intravenous drugs in hospitalized children].
Descriptive study, developed at a general university hospital that aimed at verifying the number and types of i.v. drugs administered to children, the adequacy of their pharmacological presentation for pediatric use and the estimated costs of some drugs administration. In a period of 30 days, 8,245 drug doses were administered, with an average of 274.83 doses a day, and a yearly estimation of 98.940. The most used drugs were methylprednisolone, vancomycin, furosemide, ranitidine, penicillin, amikacin, midazolam, fentanyl, ceftriaxone, cephalothin, oxacillin, ampicillin and metronidazole. None of the 41 different drugs had a pediatric presentation, what caused, in some cases, more manipulation during the preparation, increasing the contamination risks and the loss of stability. Authors observed that the lack of pediatric presentation generated an increase in care costs; as an example, considering the prescription of a child in the period after surgery, with an estimated time of hospitalization of 5 days, the daily therapy costs were of U$6.71, and U$39.52 of drugs were thrown away as they exceeded the children therapeutic needs.
Universidade Federal de São Paulo. peterlini@denf.epm.br
Maria Angélica Sorgini
MA
Peterlini
Massae Noda
MN
Chaud
Mavilde da L G
Mda L
Pedreira
D002648:Child; D002673:Child, Hospitalized; D016527:Drug Costs; D017723:Drug Utilization Review; D006801:Humans; D007275:Injections, Intravenous; D007902:Length of Stay; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000191:economics
D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations