Drug information for patients—an update of long‐term results: type of enquiries and patient characteristics

Abstract

Purpose To analyse the type of enquiries to a drug information service in Germany, available exclusively for patients. Methods Sociodemographic characteristics of the patients who used the service, number and kind of drugs taken, existing diseases, reasons for enquiry as well as type of answers provided were recorded. For the present evaluation we analysed all enquiries to the service from August 2001 to January 2007. Results A total of 5587 enquiries were received. 5013 enquiries from 4091 patients were available for further analysis in detail. The patient group using the service most frequently were women between 61 and 70 years (23.3%). 1457 enquiries (29.1%) were made by patients who had contacted the information service once or several times before. The group of drugs most often asked about were cardiovascular drugs (33.4%), followed by drugs for the nervous system (16.2%) and for the alimentary tract and metabolism (12.4%). On average, each patient had questions about 2.6 (median 1; 1–22) drugs simultaneously. Common reasons for contacting the service were adverse drug reactions (22.1%), the need for general information about the drug (19.9%), information about therapy (12.4%) and drug interactions (10.2%). Conclusions A lot of patients need additional information about their medication, especially concerning drug groups that are frequently prescribed. The presented drug information service can be one helpful tool to counteract these information deficits and to increase patients' knowledge about their drugs. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Medication-related calls received by a national telenursing triage and advice service in Australia: a retrospective cohort study

“…In this study, the majority of patients (67.9%) and callers (77.2%) were female, consistent with several other studies of queries to pharmacists [10, 11, 13, 15, 16]. …”

“…Callers regularly require quick advice about medications, such as actions to take when doses are omitted or taken accidentally, side effects, whether different medications will interact, or whether medications are safe for patients with certain conditions. Past research has focused on medication advice over the telephone targeting the public or healthcare professionals, provided by clinical pharmacologists, clinical pharmacists, poison specialists and clinical anaesthetists [10–16]. Literature around nurses’ provision of telephone based medication advice is, however, lacking.…”

Consumers’ questions about antipsychotic medication: revealing safety concerns and the silent voices of young men

“…This is consistent with the literature suggesting that women tend to seek health information more often than men [13,14,23], and for either themselves or a 'family' member [24]. It also aligns with data from other MCCs [25,26]. However, our study found a relatively high proportion of (young) males calling…”

“…Safety as a goal of medicines information seeking is in agreement with literature about medicines information needs of consumers [8,44] and with findings from other MCCs [9,26,45].…”

Nahrungsergänzungsmittel - Evaluation der Patientenanfragen an einen Arzneimittelberatungsdienst

“…Diese Angaben sollten hinsichtlich der Eigenschaften eingenommener NEM, des Informationsbedarfs hierzu und der Verbrauchercharakteristika ausgewertet werden.Am Institut für Klinische Pharmakologie der TU Dresden gibt es seit 2001 einen bundesweit agierenden Arzneimittelberatungsdienst für Patienten, der als Bestandteil der Unabhängigen Patientenberatung Deutschland (UPD) vom GKV-Spitzenverband geför-dert wird. Neben der Beantwortung von Anfragen zur Pharmakotherapie werden auch Informationen zu NEM bereitgestellt[12,10]. Alle Anfragen, die im Zeitraum von 2008 -2010 an den Arzneimittelberatungsdienst gestellt wurden, wurden dokumentiert und in einer relationalen Datenbank erfasst.…”