Drug Safety
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Preventable adverse drug events (ADEs) are common in both outpatient and inpatient settings. However, the proportion of preventable ADEs varies considerably in different studies, even when conducted in the same setting, and methods for assessing the preventability of ADEs are diverse. ⋯ Instruments for assessing the preventability of ADEs vary from implicit instruments to explicit algorithms. There is limited evidence for the validity of the identified instruments, and instrument reliability varied significantly. The process of assessing the preventability of ADEs is also commonly imprecisely described, which hinders the interpretation and comparison of studies. For measuring the preventability of ADEs more accurately and precisely in future, we believe that existing instruments should be further studied and developed, or that one or more new instruments should be developed, and the validity and reliability of the existing and new instruments be established.
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Unintended hepatic injury associated with the use of paracetamol (acetaminophen)-containing products has been growing. ⋯ Hepatic injury associated with paracetamol use is increasing significantly faster than population, paracetamol product sales and poison centre use. This suggests a growing portion of consumers is self-dosing paracetamol beyond the toxic threshold. This is true for paracetamol with and without opioids, but the increase in hepatic injury is greater when paracetamol is taken with an opioid. This disproportionate rise is greatest with misuse and abuse of paracetamol products in combination with opioids. Increasing self-dosage of the opioid combination products for the opioid effect is likely to result in more cases of toxic exposure to paracetamol. In contrast, cases of exposure to paracetamol-containing cough and cold products are underrepresented among those injured. In the absence of opioid-containing products, consumption of more than one paracetamol-containing product did not contribute to injury. Efforts to modulate unintentional paracetamol-related hepatic injury should consider these associations.