Dm. Johnstone et al., COMPARISON OF ADVERSE DRUG-REACTIONS DETECTED BY PHARMACY AND MEDICALRECORDS DEPARTMENTS, American journal of health-system pharmacy, 52(3), 1995, pp. 297-301
Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) detected by the pharmacy and medical rec
ords departments of a multispecialty teaching hospital were studied. T
he charts of all adult patients who were identified by the pharmacy or
medical records departments as having had an ADR and who were dischar
ged from the hospital between July and September 1990 were reviewed. D
ata on patient demographics and the characteristics of the ADRs were c
ollected, and the causality and severity of each ADR were assessed by
two pharmacists and one physician. A total of 110 charts representing
117 ADRs were reviewed. Twenty-five (21%) of the ADRs were identified
by the pharmacy department and 101 (86%) by the medical records depart
ment; 9 (8%) were reported by both departments. The pharmacy and medic
al records groups of patients were demographically similar, except tha
t the percentage of patients admitted through the emergency room was s
ignificantly smaller for the pharmacy department group. ADRs identifie
d by the pharmacy were most commonly cutaneous, and those identified b
y medical records were most commonly neurologic. For the pharmacy depa
rtment, hypersensitivity reactions accounted for the largest number of
ADRs, while for medical records the largest number involved abnormal
laboratory test values. Anti-infectives were involved in two thirds of
the pharmacy-identified ADRs, compared with only a fifth of the ADRs
identified by medical records. Mean causality and severity scores did
not differ significantly between the groups. The medical records depar
tment identified four times as many ADRs as the pharmacy department. O
bserved differences in the number and types of reactions, manifestatio
ns, patient locations, and suspected drugs probably reflect the differ
ent surveillance methods and ADR definitions used by the two departmen
ts.