Incidence, severity and preventability of medication-related visits to the emergency department: a prospective study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Medication-related visits to the emergency department are an important but poorly understood phenomenon. We sought to evaluate the frequency, severity and preventability of drug-related visits to the emergency department.

Methods

We performed a prospective observational study of randomly selected adults presenting to the emergency department over a 12-week period. Emergency department visits were identified as drug-related on the basis of assessment by a pharmacist research assistant and an emergency physician; discrepancies were adjudicated by 2 independent reviewers.

Results

Among the 1017 patients included in the study, the emergency department visit was identified as drug-related for 122 patients (12.0%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 10.1%-14.2%); of the

SUBMITTER: Zed PJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2396352 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature