A systematic review of hospitalization resulting from medicine‐related problems in adult patients

Abstract

AIMSMedicine-related problems (MRPs) represent a major issue leading to hospitalization, especially in adult and elderly patients. The aims of this review are to investigate the prevalence, causes and major risk factors for MRPs leading to hospitalization in adult patients and to identify the main medicine classes involved. METHODSStudies were identified through electronic searches of Medline, Embase, Scopus and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts between January 2000 and May 2013. A systematic review was conducted of both retrospective and prospective studies. Studies included were those involving hospitalization resulting from MRPs in adults (≥18 years old), whereas studies excluded were those investigating drug misuse and abuse and studies investigating MRPs in hospitalized patients. Data analysis was performed using SPSS version 20. RESULTSForty-five studies were identified, including 21 that investigated hospitalization resulting from adverse drug reactions, six studies that investigated hospitalization due to adverse drug events and 18 studies that investigated hospitalization due to MRPs. The median prevalence rates of hospitalization resulting from adverse drug reactions, adverse drug events and MRPs were 7% (interquartile range, 2.4-14.9%), 4.6% (interquartile range, 2.85-16.6%) and 12.1% (interquartile range, 6.43-22.2%), respectively. The major causes contributing to MRPs were adverse drug reactions and noncompliance. In addition, the major risk factors associated with MRPs were old age, polypharmacy and comorbidities. Moreover, the main classes of medicines implicated were medicines used to treat cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. CONCLUSIONSHospitalization due to MRPs had a high prevalence, in the range of 4.6-12.1%. Most MRPs encountered were prevalent among adult patients taking medicines for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

Critical assessment of the systematic review on hospitalization resulting from medicine related problems

“…Systematic reviews are useful to provide evidence on the magnitude of this problem. Al Hamid et al [1] are to be congratulated for the relevance of their research. However, several concerns arise that may hinder the conclusions of their study.…”

Systematic Review of Medicine-Related Problems in Adult Patients with Atrial Fibrillation on Direct Oral Anticoagulants

“…The search used medicine-related problem as a keyword and a number of terms that described problems related to the use of medication such as drugrelated problem. Additional list search terms were generated by going over the literature that was reviewed using medicine-related problem as a keyword (Van Mil et al, 2004;Van den Bemt and Egberts, 2007;Alhomoud et al, 2012;Adusumilli and Adepu, 2014;Al Hamid et al, 2014). Each article suggested a list of search terms for 'medicine-related problem'.…”

Inappropriate prescribing, non-adherence to long-term medications and related morbidities : Pharmacoepidemiological aspects

“…However, the frequency of DRMs has varied widely from 0.2% to 65% in individual studies (38,40,41), due to differing study designs and settings, study populations, and detection methods of DRMs (39,42). Moreover, DRMs are found more often among the elderly and persons with multiple medications (38,(43)(44)(45).…”