Detection of adverse reactions to drugs from the hospital admission diagnosis. Method and results
Armadans, L.; Carné, X.; Laporte, J.R.
Medicina Clinica 91(4): 124-127
1988
ISSN/ISBN: 0025-7753 PMID: 3262798 Document Number: 320777
A new method for the detection of adverse reactions to drugs (ARD) requiring hospital admission is described. It consists on the daily systematic review of the list of admission diagnoses made in the hospital emergency service so as to identify those possible instances of ARD. The clinical records of the suspect cases are reviewed to detect those clinical presentations consistent with other etiologies. When the latter cannot be ruled out, the patient is interviewed with a preestablished questionnaire. In the evaluation of the method 90 ARDs have been detected throughout a three month period (2.2% of all admissions). Upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage has been the most common diagnosis of possible ARD, and it has therefore been used to test method. The reported method is a rapid, simple and effective system for the evaluation of severe ARDs. It may play a role in drug surveillance, having a place between the systems of spontaneous reporting of adverse reactions (yellow card) and formal epidemiological studies.