Abstract
Drug information service is a dedicated and specialized service provided by pharmacists to enhance knowledge of medicines use, promote rational prescribing among prescribers, and reduce medication errors. Saudi Arabia has a National Drug and Poison Information Center (NDPIC) responsible for answering drug queries. There is a lack of literature that reports the current scenario of drug information services in the country, especially the Eastern Province. This study reported the current status of drug information services being provided among tertiary care hospitals of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. All hospitals provided drug information services. The qualification of personnel was mostly bachelor’s level (46.2%) and without proper training (54.8%). The most common queries received in a day were related to drug alternatives, dosage, and administration, as well as the availability of drugs. Physicians were the main users of the service. The most common health resources employed for the service was Lexi-Comp (76.9%) and Micromedex (69.2%). The use of Saudi National Formulary was not reported by any hospital, which highlights a potential research gap to address i.e., to investigate the lack of use of SNF by practitioners.
Highlights
Drug information service is a specialized service provided by pharmacists to enhance drug knowledge, empower rational prescribing, and reduce medication errors [1]
Almost half of the hospitals (N = 7, 53.8%) had a dedicated drug information office followed by a third proportion (N = 4, 30.8%) that provided the service through a clinical pharmacy department
Our study revealed that drug information service is provided in all major tertiary care hospitals across five cities in the Eastern Province
Summary
Drug information service is a specialized service provided by pharmacists to enhance drug knowledge, empower rational prescribing, and reduce medication errors [1]. This service is provided in response to the queries sought by allied health professionals in addressing medication-related problems pertaining to pharmacotherapy and medicine management issues of patients [2,3]. One of the most important aspects of drug information is to be unbiased in its contents [4]. The unbiased nature of information is of paramount importance to enhance patient outcomes and reduce adverse drug reactions (ADRs) [5]. The center has a total of 31 hospitals with established drug information centers
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