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Medicine Side Effects

In a study of outpatients in the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, researchers found that among patients taking more than one medication, rarely were they taking the same combination of drugs as other patients. Consequently, this can compound matters for clinicians who are monitoring and predicting dangerous drug-to-drug interactions.

Multiple medication use was also shown to increase with age and among patients taking an antidepressant. More than one-third of patients taking an antidepressant were taking at least 8 medications.

Assessing the findings, the study's author, Sheldon Preskorn, MD, professor, chairman, Department of Psychiatry, University of Kansas School of Medicine, warned that no prescriber could have absolute clinical knowledge of all combined effects of drugs his or her patients are taking, which opens the door to potentially adverse interactions.

In Dr. Preskorn's study, he cautions, "Physicians should not take a 'silo' or tunnel vision approach to the management of their patients."

He continues that it is imperative that prescribers:

* diagnose the patient adequately

* select appropriate medications to treat all illnesses the patient has

* consider the biological variance that separates his patient from the patient in clinical registration trials.

Source: J Psychiatr Pract 2005; 11(1):46-50.

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