DRUG-RELATED MORTALITY IN CANADA (1984-1994)

Objective - To examine drug-related deaths due to adverse drug reactio ns between 1984 and 1994. Data source - Voluntary reports of deaths du e to adverse events as reported to the Adverse Drug Reaction Monitorin g Program, Drugs Directorate, Health Protection Branch, Health Canada. Methods - Drugs were classified according to the Anatomical, Therapeu tic, Chemical (ATC) coding system. Descriptive statistics were utilize d. Results - One thousand four hundred and seventeen drug-related deat hs were reported (700 male, 685 female, 32 unknown). The mean +/- SD a ge of patients was 54.6 +/- 21.7 years (range 1 month - 97 years). In total, 2131 medications were implicated as suspect drugs (1.5 +/- 1.0, range 1-7). The most commonly reported categories of suspect drugs we re the nervous system agents (50.6%), followed by cardiovascular syste m agents (9.0%), general antiinfectives for systemic use (8.8%) and mu sculoskeletal system agents (8.3%). One thousand and eighty-six deaths were classified as non-suicides. For non-suicide deaths, the most com monly reported suspect drugs were classified as nervous system agents (37.9%), followed by general antiinfectives for systemic use (12.3%), musculoskeletal system (11.5%) and cardiovascular system agents (10.2% ). Three hundred and thirty-one (23.3%) reports were identified as sui cides. For suicides, the most commonly reported suspect drugs were the nervous system agents (81.1%), followed by the respiratory system age nts (8.5%) and the cardiovascular system agents (6.0%). Conclusion - N ervous system agents, musculoskeletal medications and general antiinfe ctives for systemic use figured prominently in deaths reported to HPB between 1984 and 1994. (C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.