UNLABELLED Inappropriate prescribing reduces the quality of medical care and leads to a waste of resources. No study has been reported concerning rational drug use in United Arab Emirates, UAE, recently. OBJECTIVES assessing patterns of use and defining problems regarding the rational drug use.Setting baseline situational analysis study for practices in the health care system relevant to drug...

BACKGROUND Chemotherapy administration is a high-risk process. Aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency, type, preventability, as well as potential and actual severity of outpatient chemotherapy prescribing errors in an Oncology Department where electronic prescribing is used. METHODS Up to three electronic prescriptions per patient record were selected from the clinical records of con...

We developed an antimicrobial stewardship programme, based on telemedicine, for a remote community hospital in southern Brazil. Expertise in infectious diseases was provided from a 250-bed tertiary hospital for cardiology patients located 575 km away. At the community hospital, antimicrobial prescriptions were completed via a secure web site. A written reply was sent back to the prescriber by e...

Drug therapy is the most commonly used method of any disease treatment in general practice. However, the patterns of drug prescription are often inappropriate and the need for registration and evaluation of these patterns is essential in an effort to improve prescription standards. Cross sectional retrospective study was used. Prescriptions were selected by using simple random sampling techniqu...

BACKGROUND There is considerable controversy about the regular use of short-acting beta-agonists for the treatment of asthma. Although case-control studies have suggested that excessive use of these drugs may worsen asthma control and increase the risk of fatal or near-fatal asthma, the controversy remains unresolved because of the confounding that exists among disease control, disease severity...

A combination of aerobic activity, strength training, and flexibility exercises, plus increased general daily activity can reduce medication dependence and health care costs while maintaining functional independence and improving quality of life in older adults. However, patients often do not benefit fully from exercise prescriptions because they receive vague or inappropriate instructions. Eff...

Elderly have pathophysiological changes, higher incidence of chronic diseases, are at risk of polypharmacy and medication errors. Drug utilisation studies enable us to detect such problems and prioritize efforts to correct them. The current study was carried out with the objectives of delineating prescription pattern in elderly outpatients, determining the prescribing frequency of Potentially I...

OBJECTIVE Inappropriate drug prescription is a common problem in people living in nursing homes and is linked to adverse health outcomes. This study assessed the effect of an educational intervention directed to nursing home physicians in reducing inappropriate prescription and improving health outcomes and resource utilization. DESIGN Prospective, randomized, multicenter study. SETTING A p...

BACKGROUND Multimorbidity and polypharmacy represent a major problem for elderly patients. Potentially inappropriate medication (PIM) use is highly prevalent among the elderly. PIMs are considered high-risk drugs and are suspected to be responsible for adverse drug events (ADEs) leading to hospitalization. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to determine hospitalization rates related to...

BACKGROUND Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are at increased risk for inappropriate or potentially harmful prescribing. The aim of this study was to examine whether a multifaceted intervention including the use of a software programme for the estimation of creatinine clearance and recommendation of individual dosage requirements may improve correct dosage adjustment of relevant medica...