Following the Mediator crisis and the passage of the Health and Safety Law of December 2011, off-label prescriptions are a real concern shared by all those involved in healthcare system. Off-label, in the strictest sense of the term, is defined as all prescriptions that do not correspond to the summary of product characteristics (SPC), particularly those that fail to comply with the indications...

CONTEXT This study is part of the Methods of Assessing Response to Quality Improvement Strategies (MARQuIS) research project on cross-border care, investigating quality improvement strategies in healthcare systems across the European Union (EU). AIM To explore to what extent a sample of acute care European hospitals have implemented patient safety strategies and mechanisms and whether the imp...

Self-determination theory was applied to explore the motivational basis of adherence to long-term medication prescriptions. Adult outpatients with various diagnoses who had been on a medication for at least 1 month and expected to continue (a) completed questionnaires that assessed their autonomous regulation, other motivation variables, and perceptions of their physicians' support of their aut...

BACKGROUND In 2012, a new pharmaceutical policy was introduced in Korea. According to the new policy, off-patent brand-name drugs (original drugs) and generic drugs must be priced the same. METHODS This study aims to investigate the perception and attitude of Korean physicians towards generic drugs before and after the policy reform. Surveys were conducted with registered doctors at the Healt...

In this paper, we discuss modeling issues of the Parkinson's tremor. Through the work we have employed physiological structure as well as functioning of the parts in brain that are involved in the disease. To obtain more practical similarity, random behaviors of the connection paths are also considered. Medication or treatment of the disease both by drug prescription and electrical signal stimu...

A longitudinal study of neurotic disorder in the community showed that half the cases identified at first interview had remitted one month later. Remission was significantly related to four variables: recency of onset and of peak of the disorders, the occurrence of recent threatening life events and the occurrence of subsequent "neutralizing' life events. A neutralizing event was defined a prio...

BACKGROUND in older people, medications with anticholinergic (antimuscarinic) effects are associated with adverse clinical outcomes, the risk increasing with increasing anticholinergic exposure. Many anticholinergics are recognised as potentially inappropriate and efforts to reduce prescription have been ongoing. We examined temporal trends of anticholinergic prescription and exposure in older ...

BACKGROUND Evidence from the United States and Europe suggests that the use of prescription drugs may vary by ethnicity. In Canada, ethnic disparities in prescription drug use have not been as well documented as disparities in the use of medical and hospital care. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of survey and administrative data to examine needs-adjusted rates of prescription drug use b...

BACKGROUND In recent years, the number of prescriptions for sedative drugs has increased significantly, as has their long-term use. Moreover, sedative use is frequently initiated during hospital stays. OBJECTIVES This study aimed to describe new prescriptions of sedative drugs during hospital stays and evaluate their maintenance as discharge medication. METHODS This observational prospectiv...