Prevalence of Drug-Related Hospital Admissions

Objectives : To determine the incidence of hospital admissions caused by problems related to drugtherapy, and to describe their characteristics and impact on clinical outcomes.Methodology: From October 1, 2000 to September 30, 2001 we performed a prospective assessmentof all admissions to the medical wards, Lampang Hospital to determine if the admissions wererelated to drug therapy. Results : Of 12,092' admissions, 760 (6.3%) were assessed as being drug-related; 47.2% of patientswith DRAs were male. The average age was 49.11 years (+20.42). The average LOS was 3.84 days(+2.99). The top five DRAs were caused by adverse drug reactions (299, 39.3%), intentional ingestionof a toxic amount of drugs or chemicals (235, 30.9%), patients noncompliance (126, 16.6%), drugallergy (51, 6.7%), and suspected drug overdose (22, 2.9%). Out of 760 DRAs, 709 (93.3 %) werepotentially avoidable. 21 (2.8%) of these 760 patients with DRAs died because of DRAs, The estimatedannual cost to the hospital for all patients with DRAs was 4,219,676 Bahts; for potentiallyavoidable DRAs, this was 4,034,262 Bahts (95.6%). Conclusions : The prevalence of DRAs in Lampang Hospital was similar to other published rates,and over 90% were potentially avoidable. The hospital health care team should concentrate oneducation, counseling, and monitoring drug therapy in the high risk group. Key words : Drug-related, iatrogenic, hospital, admission, and adverse drug event