POTENTIAL-DRUG INTERACTIONS IN A PHYSICAL MEDICINE AND REHABILITATIONCLINIC

Potentially preventable adverse drug-drug interactions increase morbid ity and financial costs to hospitals and third party payers. This stud y's purpose is to document the prevalence of potential drug-drug inter actions (PDDI) in patients referred to a Physical Medicine and Rehabil itation (PM&R) clinic, to identify risk factors associated with PDDI, and to evaluate physicians' ability to correctly identify these PDDI. Current medication lists were obtained by questionnaire and confirmed by chart review for 121 consecutive new patients. The physician-identi fied PDDI were compared with computer-identified PDDI. Twenty-seven pa tients (22 %; 95 % confidence interval, 15-31 %) had PDDI. PDDI were a ssociated with number of medications (P = 0.0011) and PM&R subspecialt y clinic (P = 0.012). Twenty-nine of the 46 computer-identified intera ctions (63 %) were not identified by the physicians, and the physician s falsely identified 28 other drug combinations as PDDI. Potential dru g-drug interactions occur at high rates in PM&R outpatient populations , and physicians are inadequately prepared to identify these PDDI.