title: Medical, nursing, and pharmacy students' ability to recognize potential drug-drug interactions: a comparison of healthcare professional students.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate and compare the drug-drug interaction (DDI) knowledge of pharmacy, medical, and nurse practitioner (NP) students who are beginning supervised clinical practice.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study utilized a prospective evaluation of DDI knowledge among healthcare professional students who were currently enrolled in their final didactic year at the University of Arizona Colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy, or Nursing's NP program. Students were asked to assess 15 drug pairs and to select an appropriate management strategy for each pair. The primary outcome measure was the ability to correctly categorize each drug pair into one of the five management responses. The secondary outcome measure was the number of clinically significant DDIs recognized.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Pharmacy students demonstrated significantly better knowledge than medical and NP students with respect to identifying and selecting management strategies for possible DDIs. However, there is much room for improvement for all groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  An increase in curricular content that focuses on DDIs has the potential to better prepare medical, pharmacy, and NP students for practice situations involving DDI alerts, and to increase the quality of patient care.
authors.affiliation: College of Pharmacy, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. warholak@pharmacy.arizona.edu
authors.forename: Terri L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Warholak
authors.forename: Lisa E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Hines
authors.forename: Mi Chi
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Austin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gessay
authors.forename: J Michael
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Menke
authors.forename: Duane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sherrill
authors.forename: Sally
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Reel
authors.forename: John E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.forename: Daniel C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Malone
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004347:Drug Interactions; D004359:Drug Therapy, Combination / Q000009:adverse effects*; D004501:Education, Medical; D004506:Education, Nursing; D004512:Education, Pharmacy; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000517:prevention & control; D009722:Nurse Practitioners / Q000193:education; D011446:Prospective Studies