Research has shown that a substantial portion of older adults, ranging from 24% to 72%, are using potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs). This misuse is largely driven by two main factors: polypharmacy and the prescription of PIMs in individuals with multiple health conditions.
Improper medication use among older adults has serious consequences, including an increased risk of adverse drug events, unplanned hospitalizations, rising healthcare costs, and frequent visits to the emergency department.
Additionally, self-medication and medication non-adherence further compromise patient health outcomes. Despite efforts to develop tailored interventions, the improvement in appropriate medication use has been slower than anticipated. One significant reason for this slow progress appears to be the absence of a thorough grasp of medication misuse and improper use, which is essential for crafting effective interventions.
It is worth highlighting that the benefits of using medication appropriately rely on accurate diagnosis, precise prescription, patient adherence to medication instructions, and regular monitoring by healthcare professionals.
The initial step in understanding the challenges related to comprehending and effectively using medication information for making informed health decisions is to assess the user perception of this information. Alongside medication counseling, prescription drug label (PDL) instructions play a crucial role in guiding patients to adhere to their prescribed medications.
When patients struggle to comprehend label instructions, it can lead to medication errors, reduced treatment effectiveness, and medication non-adherence.
Conducted a study to assess the comprehensibility of PDL instructions, comparing those presented on a personalized medication overview to the standard instructions found on medication packaging.
The results showed that those exposed to the overview had a higher percentage of correct answers, particularly regarding medications with complex instructions. This study suggests that a medication overview with additional information can enhance patients’ understanding and adherence to medication instructions.
Another study examined the preferences of caregivers of children regarding accessible information on safe medication use for children, considering content, channels, and formats of healthcare information. The findings indicated that caregivers primarily obtain information from medical institutions, healthcare professionals, and personal media.
They favor text, pictures, and videos as content formats and prioritize the popularization of knowledge about safe medication for children. Both studies address that to promote safe medication use, it is essential to disseminate accurate and comprehensible healthcare information about medications through diverse channels, accounting for user preferences.
Ensuring proper medication use also hinges on accurate prescribing to prevent serious adverse drug reactions (ADRs)
The variations in antipsychotic prescribing patterns provide valuable insights for future research aimed at understanding the reasons behind disparities in medication utilization. In another study and their team performed a network meta-analysis involving 159 randomized controlled trials to evaluate the efficacy of pharmacological interventions for smoking cessation.
Whether used as monotherapy or in combination, these interventions showed benefits for smoking cessation compared to a placebo.
Additionally, a separate network meta-analysis of 33 randomized controlled trials compared various pharmacological interventions for preventing opioid-induced hyperalgesia and its impact on postoperative pain.
Implementing drug monitoring as part of medication management aids in the identification of factors that may lead to ADRs and enables early intervention. A review of 26 articles investigated sex differences in ADRs associated with commonly used psychotropic, cardiovascular, and analgesic medications.
The findings pointed out over half of these studies revealed sex-specific patterns in ADR occurrence. Some severe ADRs exhibited variations related to sex, such as a higher prevalence of clozapine-induced neutropenia in women and a more pronounced incidence of liver function issues with simvastatin/atorvastatin in men.
Consequently, accounting for sex differences in ADRs may be a critical consideration for clinical decision-making examined the current status of individualized pharmaceutical care in China, which includes therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), pharmacogenetic (PGx) testing, and pharmacist-managed clinics. Their findings indicated that only a small percentage of hospitals conducted TDM and performed PGx testing.
A Guest Editorial!