Evaluation of a patient event report monitoring system

Background - Detection of adverse drug reactions needs improving. Consumer recruitment and reporting is controversial. Aim - Pilot a method of adverse drug event reporting by patients. Methods - Patients commencing on long-term medications were asked to record adverse events in a diary for 8 months. Three methods of recruiting patien ts were compared, th tough communi ty pharmacies by a pharmacist or a resea rch nurse and by 3 clinical pharmacist in a teaching hospital. Results - 119 subjects: 77 recruited by community pharmacists, 20 by 3 rese arch nurse located in community pharmacies and 22 by a clinical pharmacist. Refusal rates were 57.2, 78.0 and 53.2% respectively. Nineteen (16.0%) peo ple withdrew and nine (7.6%) people were lost to follow-up. Thirty (33.0%) people experienced an adverse event attributed to the medication they were taking. Conclusion - Evaluation of this patient ec ent reporting monitoring system showed that patients can be recruited by pharmacists in community and hospi tal settings. Refusal rates were smaller when the community pharmacist was recruiting compared to the research nurse. Patients are capable of recordin g adverse medical events, particularly those that result in doctor visits o r hospitalization. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.