Profile of drug interactions in hospitalized children

INTRODUCTION: The expected therapeutic response may be affected by the presence of drug interactions. With the high number of reports on new drug interactions, it has been difficult for health professionals to keep constantly updated. For this reason, computer systems have helped identify such interactions. OBJECTIVES: To verify the rate and profile of drug interactions in medical prescriptions to hospitalized pediatric patients. METHODS: A descriptive study investigated prescriptions to hospitalized pediatric patients. The study included patients between 0 and 12 years old, containing 4 or more drugs in their prescriptions. The analysis of interaction and incompatibility possibilities in prescribed drugs used Micromedex / Drug-Reax® program. RESULTS: From 2005 to 2006, 3,170 patients were investigated, and 11,181 prescriptions were analyzed, a mean value of 3.5 prescriptions/patient. In total, 6,857 drug interactions were found, which corresponds to 1.9 interaction/prescription. Among them, relevance to ampicillin and gentamicin, found in 220 (3.2%) prescriptions. In total, 2,411 drug incompatibilities in via y were found, a mean value of 0.5/prescription, with emphasis on vancomycin and cefepime, found in 243 (10.0%) prescriptions. CONCLUSION: The presence of drug interactions is a permanent risk in hospitals. This way, the utilization of computer programs, pharmacotherapy monitoring of patients and the pharmacist presence in the multidisciplinary team are some manners of contributing to hospitalized patients’ treatment.