Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a chronic condition that affects one in six adults in the US during their lifetime. The current practice of antidepressant medication prescription is a trial-and-error process. Additionally, over a third of patients with MDD fail to respond to two or more antidepressant treatments. There are no valid clinical markers to personalize currently available antidepr...

A medication error is a failure in the treatment process that leads to, or has the potential to lead to, harm to the patient. Medication errors can occur in deciding which medicine and dosage regimen to use (prescribing faults--irrational, inappropriate, and ineffective prescribing, underprescribing, overprescribing); writing the prescription (prescription errors); manufacturing the formulation...

BACKGROUND Relatively little is known about prescribing errors in general practice, or the factors associated with error. AIM To determine the prevalence and nature of prescribing and monitoring errors in general practices in England. DESIGN AND SETTING Retrospective case-note review of unique medication items prescribed over a 12-month period to a 2% random sample of patients. Fifteen gene...

The purpose of this study was to determine the rate of self-reported errors in Canada compared with other countries, and to identify risk factors for medical error. In 2007, the Commonwealth Fund surveyed a sample of adults in seven industrialized nations, including Canada. Data from this source were used to perform a bivariate analysis comparing those individuals who reported having experience...

OBJECTIVE The main objective of this study was to assess the diagnostic performances of an alert system integrated into the CPOE/EMR system for renally cleared drug dosing control. The generated alerts were compared with the daily routine practice of pharmacists as part of the analysis of medication orders. MATERIALS AND METHODS The pharmacists performed their analysis of medication orders as...

The knowledge of medication errors is an essential prerequisite for better healthcare delivery. The present study investigated prescribing errors in prescriptions from outpatient departments (OPDs) and emergency wards of two public sector hospitals in Lahore, Pakistan. A manual prescription system was followed in Hospital A. Hospital B was running a semi-computerised prescription system in the ...

BACKGROUND Self-reported prescription medication use data is often used to measure differences across ethnic groups, but its accuracy may differ across ethnic groups. OBJECTIVE We compared ethnic groups' self-reported medication use to their administrative records for respondents with diabetes, hypertension, and asthma. METHODS We linked the Canadian Community Health Survey to administrativ...

Identifying the factors and components of an electronic prescription system is of utmost importance in effective designing and implementation of this system. In this regard, the current study was conducted to determine the main factors affecting the national model of electronic prescription from the physicians’ point of view. This is a cross-sectional, descriptive-analytical research carried ou...