Revista panamericana de salud pública = Pan American journal of public health
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Rev. Panam. Salud Publica · Oct 2014
[Prescription drug monitoring programs in the United States of America].
Since the late 1990s, the number of opioid analgesic overdose deaths has quadrupled in the United States of America (from 4 030 deaths in 1999 to 16 651 in 2010). The objectives of this article are to provide an overview of the problem of prescription drug overdose in the United States and to discuss actions that could help reduce the problem, with particular attention to the characteristics of prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs). ⋯ Suppliers can use such information to prevent interaction with other drugs or therapeutic duplication, or to identify drug-search behavior. Law enforcement agencies can use these programs to identify improper drug prescription or dispensing patterns, or drug diversion.
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Rev. Panam. Salud Publica · Oct 2014
[Adherence to research reporting guidelines in biomedical journals in Latin America and the Caribbean].
To evaluate the familiarity of the editors of journals indexed in the LILACS database with the guidelines for reporting on and publishing research- promoted by the EQUATOR Network (Enhancing QUAlity and Transparency Of Health Research)-, the journals' requirements for use of the guidelines, and the editors' opinions regarding the reasons for the low rate of use. ⋯ The first Latin American and Caribbean study on LILACS editors' familiarity with the guidelines revealed that more than half of them were not familiar either with the guidelines or the EQUATOR Network.