ADR RELATED QUESTIONS RECEIVED BY A TELEPHONE MEDICINES INFORMATION-SERVICE AND ADRS RECEIVED BY A SPONTANEOUS ADR REPORTING SYSTEM - A COMPARISON REGARDING PATIENTS AND DRUGS

A telephone medicines information service (telephone service) has been available in the Netherlands since 1990. Patients can anonymously and free of charge ask a pharmacist all kinds of questions related to med ication use. An analysis of the questions (n = 7541) received by this service in 1994 showed that 28% of the questions predominantly related to adverse drug reactions (ADRs). A comparison was made between quest ions concerning ADRs received by the telephone service and suspected A DRs reported to the regionalized ADR reporting system LAREB regarding characteristics of the associated patients and medicines. In both syst ems approximately two out of three patients were women. LAREB received relatively more reports concerning patients of 60 years and older, wh ereas the telephone service received relatively more questions from pa tients aged 20-40 years. For most classes of medicines the observed pr oportion of encounters at both systems differed from the expected prop ortion estimated by the number of prescriptions in the same year. Anti depressants in particular were more frequently encountered at both sys tems than expected. There were clear differences between the telephone service and LAREB regarding the classes of medicines encountered. Rep orts of suspected ADRs submitted to LAREB more frequently involved ant ibiotics, antirheumatic products, anti-asthmatics, antihypertensives a nd topical antifungals, whereas questions concerning ADRs received by the telephone service significantly more frequently concerned drugs ac ting on the central nervous system (anxiolytics/hypnotics/sedatives, a ntidepressants and antipsychotic drugs) and corticosteroids. We are se tting up further studies to investigate whether telephone services can serve as an additional tool in postmarketing surveillance for identif ying potential drug safety issues. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.