Drug Utilization Evaluation (DUE) studies are designed to assess drug usage appropriateness. We aim to evaluate the drug utilization of intravenous ciprofloxacin and imipenem, two of the broad spectrum antibiotics that consume a significant proportion of our hospitals’ outlay, in different wards of a teaching hospital in Zabol. During a 5 months period (December 2010 to May 2011), 263 patients ...

BACKGROUND This study aimed to determine the baseline demographics, health status, and drug use profiles of current and former substance-using older adults in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. METHODS Data were derived from two U.S. National Institutes of Health-funded cohort studies of current and former illegal drug users in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. We used logistic regression of cross-s...

The treatment of diabetes in the elderly is a major challenge both in terms of clinical management and of public health. Evidence about prescribing patterns in the elderly diabetic population is limited. The aim was to describe trends in antidiabetic drug (AD) utilization patterns in the elderly in Southern Italy with a focus on drugs for cardiovascular prevention and pharmaceutical costs. The ...

The Medicare Part D prescription drug program was implemented in 2006 to provide prescription drug coverage for elderly and disabled citizens. Recent data indicate that Part D provides prescription drug coverage for 3.4 million American seniors who did not otherwise have prescription insurance.1 Analyses of prescription claims data suggest that Part D has increased prescription drug utilization...

OBJECTIVES The objective of this investigation was to demonstrate the possibility of the construction of a real-time prescription drug monitoring system (PDMOS) using data from the nationwide Drug Utilization Review (DUR) system in Korea. METHODS The DUR system collects information on drug prescriptions issued by healthcare practitioners and on drugs dispensed by pharmacies. PDMOS was constru...

introduction : infections in neutropenic patients are considered as major causes of mortality and emergence of drug resistant gram positive bacterial infections are crucially important to be covered if indicated. vancomycin is active against most gram positive bacteria including methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa). in this study, we evaluated the appropriate utilization of this a...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this paper was to compare outpatient consumption and quality of psychotropic drug prescribing between Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina 2006-2010. METHODS Data on drug utilization from Zagreb Municipal Pharmacy and Sarajevo Public Pharmacy were used to calculate the number of defined daily doses (DDD) and DDD per 1000 inhabitants per day (DDD/TID) using the WHO Anatom...

OBJECTIVE To describe trends in outpatient prescription drug utilization in US children and the changes in major areas of pediatric therapeutic use for the years 2002 through 2010. METHODS Large prescription databases (the IMS Vector One: National and Total Patient Tracker) were used to examine national drug utilization patterns for the US pediatric population (ages 0-17 years) from 2002 thro...

This study examines the effectiveness of diagnosis restrictions as a drug utilization control in California's Medi-Cal (Medicaid) program. The numbers of Valium prescriptions dispensed, the numbers of Medi-Cal beneficiaries using Valium and the expenditures represented by those prescriptions were measured during application of a diagnosis restriction for a 33-month base period, followed by remo...

Knowledge of patterns of treatment discontinuation in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drug treatment is of importance, for both the clinical practice and the study of long-term treatment outcomes. The purpose of this study was to describe early discontinuation of ADHD drug treatment. Using the Danish National Prescription Registry, all first-time users of the ADHD drugs methylph...