Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety
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Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · Apr 2012
Records linkage of electronic databases for the assessment of adverse effects of antiretroviral therapy in sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2009, the Ministry of Health and Social Services in Namibia decided to conduct a confirmatory assessment of the risk of anemia associated with zidovudine (AZT)-based highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) using records contained in three electronic databases. These records did not share a unique identifying number. The first step was to apply probabilistic record linkage methods to link records in the three databases. ⋯ Probabilistic record linkage methods were effective for records linkage in this sub-Saharan African setting.
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Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · Feb 2012
The effect of an educational intervention on meperidine use in Nova Scotia, Canada: a time series analysis.
To evaluate the impact of a prescriber focused individual educational and audit-feedback intervention undertaken by the Nova Scotia Prescription Monitoring Program (NSPMP) in March/April 2007 to reduce meperidine use. ⋯ Given the risks associated with meperidine, determining that this intervention successfully reduced meperidine use is encouraging. This study highlights the potential for using population data such as the NSPMP to evaluate the effectiveness of population-level interventions to improve medication use, including professional, organizational, financial, and regulatory initiatives.
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Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · Feb 2012
Drug prescriptions of adults with adolescent depression in a community sample.
The prescription drugs have, to our knowledge, not been much studied in epidemiological samples with long-term follow-up. Accordingly, our purpose was to analyze the use of prescription drugs in adults with adolescent depression. ⋯ The females but not males with adolescent depression subsequently received more prescription drugs than non-depressed peers. Depressed female adolescents received more psychotropic and non-psychotropic drugs later in life compared to the non-depressed. This might be as a result of physical illnesses, different treatment-seeking behaviors, or somatizing reactions.
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Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · Feb 2012
Off-label prescribing patterns of antidepressants in children and adolescents.
To understand the extent of off-label prescribing among pediatrics, the study assesses the prescribing patterns of antidepressants in ambulatory settings. ⋯ The study observed a very high prevalence of off-label antidepressant prescribing patterns among children and adolescents in US ambulatory care settings. Coordinated efforts should be placed to evaluate the potential reasons and ramifications of antidepressant off-label prescribing to guard patients' safety.
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Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · Feb 2012
Polypharmacy of potentially addictive medication in the older persons--quantifying usage.
The use of restricted medications, for example, opioids, benzodiazepines (BZD), and z-hypnotics, in the older persons continues to increase. Little is known about usage practices or about the extent of polypharmacy within this group. The objectives of this study were (i) to describe polypharmacy and (ii) to develop a medication usage index (MUI) to quantify usage patterns. ⋯ Polypharmacy was found to be common within these restricted drug categories for the older persons. MUI provides a convenient approach to summarizing drug usage and will be useful in detecting trends and regional differences and determining the impact of interventions.