This study aimed to evaluate nurses' knowledge, perceptions and opinions of double-checking medication administration in a UK children's hospital. Of 119 questionnaires distributed, 48 were returned. Only 30 respondents had seen a written version of the hospital double-checking policy. More than half stated that they had not received formal training in double-checking medications. Of 35 nurses ...

There is a need to reduce medication errors, and one way of achieving this for high-risk medications is by double-checking. This article reports the results of a literature review, undertaken as part of an MSc, which examined safe processes for double-checking. The article discusses three themes that emerged from the review: the evidence and processes of double-checking, supportive safety measu...

background: this study was done to assess the use of traditional/complementary and alternative medicine (tm/cam) during pregnancy and the reasons behind it from the mother’s perspective. materials and methods: in a cross-sectional study, 919 pregnant mothers attending at prenatal care units of governmental health centers recruited through a multistage sampling and completed a self-report questi...

OBJECTIVES To review the characteristics and performance of research ethics committees in Spain in the evaluation of multicentre clinical trial drug protocols. DESIGN A prospective study of 100 applications. SETTING Forty-one committees reviewing clinical trial protocols, involving 50 hospitals in 25 cities. MAIN MEASURES Protocol-related features, characteristics of research ethics commi...

This report presents the recommendations of the WHO Expert Committee responsible for updating the WHO Model Lists of Essential Medicines. It contains a summary of the Committee's considerations and justifications for additions and changes to the Model Lists, including its recommendations. Annexes to the main report include the revised version of the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (17th e...

BACKGROUND Clinical trial (and other) data from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) offers the best available opportunity to address the extensive reporting bias in pharmaceutical trial literature. Data are requested via freedom of information requests, but 5 years on, little is known about how the system is working. METHODS Case series of 12 requests for regulatory data (clinical study repor...

What health professionals know about medicines resembles the information provided in the advertisements of pharmaceutical companies rather than the scientific literature. Drug companies spend 15-20% of their income on promotion. They are responsible for providing adequate information about drugs, and the wording and illustrations should be consistent with the scientific data sheet for the drug ...

In a cross-over study in a group of epileptic patients it was shown that replacement of the evening dose of an ordinary phenytoin preparation with the same phenytoin dose in a delayed-action preparation produced no significant change in the next morning's mean blood phenytoin concentration. However, replacement of the entire daily dose of an ordinary phenytoin preparation with the delayed-actio...

We compared the effects of the newer inotropic drugs, pimobendan (UD-CG 115 BS) and milrinone (Win 47203), on the electrical, mechanical and biochemical activity of intact and detergent-skinned preparations of cardiac muscle. Both of these agents increased contractile force of guinea pig papillary muscle preparations bathed under physiological conditions or depolarized with 25 mM K+o. The posit...