Medication Interaction and Physicians' Compliance Assessment through Medication Reconciliation Forms in a University Affiliated Hospital

Background: Medication interactions are associated with various unwanted adverse drug reactions. Medication Reconciliation involves a process in which a complete list of patient's previously prescribed medications are recorded and subsequently evaluated within the context of concomitantly prescribed medications and present medical condition during the hospitalization. Method: Medical records of randomly selected 270 patients hospitalized in internal medicine, cardiovascular and infectious diseases wards were evaluated. Drug interactions were checked by LexiComp® database. Each interaction was assigned a risk rating of A, B, C, D, or X. The progression from A to X was based on increased urgency for responding to the data. Completed reconciliation forms were attached to patient charts for evaluation of physicians' compliance. Results: Drug interactions were observed in 65.2% (176/270) of cases. The risk rating of interactions was categorized as C, D and X in 54.2%, 32.4% and 13.4% of cases, respectively. There was a positive correlation between the number of prescribed medications and the rate of interactions (p-value