Adverse drug reaction: prevalence in French public hospitals

The French network of Regional Centres of Pharmacovigilance has made an est imation of the occurrence of adverse drug reactions in a representative sam ple of patients in French public hospitals (departments of medicine, of sur gery and of geriatrics). The study looked at one specific day in the spring of 1997. Each observed case of adverse drug reaction was validated. The to tal sample comprised 2132 patients of whom 969 were in a university hospita l and 1163 in a general hospital. The hospitals and units concerned are rep resentative of the country as a whole. One adverse drug reaction at least w as present for 221 patients On the day of the investigation. This means a p revalence rate of 10.3 per cent (95 per cent CI: 8.7 to 11.9 per cent). In 33 per cent of cases (95 per cent CI: 26 to 42 per cent), the observed effe cts were rated as serious. From an incidence rate of 1.8 per cent (95 per c ent CI: 1.0 to 25 per cent) on one specified day it can be estimated that i n France an adverse drug reaction will occur in about 1 300 000 patients pe r year during a stay in hospital.