Abstract
BackgroundDrug interactions are a significant issue in mental illnesses and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections. Inconsistency in drug interaction resources makes prescribing challenging for healthcare professionals. To assess the scope, completeness, and consistency of drug-drug interactions (DDIs) between psychotropic and COVID-19 medications in six specific drug information (DI) databases.MethodologyFor the comparison, six DI resources were used: Portable Electronic Physician Information Database, Micromedex®, Medscape.com, UpToDate®, Drugs.com drug interaction checker, and WebMD.com drug interaction checker. Using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 27 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY), the gathered data were examined for scope, completeness, and consistency.ResultsScope scores were higher for PEPID© than all the other resources (p < 0.001) for each comparison. PEPID© had better overall completeness scores (median 5, Interquartile range [IQR] 5 to 5; p<0.05 for each comparison), except for Drugs.com (p < 0.05 for each comparison), and were more remarkable for Micromedex® (median 5, IQR 5 to 5). The Fleiss kappa scores among the six different DI sources were poor (k < 0.20, p < 0.05) for the category of information related to clinical effects and level of documentation, moderate agreement (k = 0.4 - 0.6, p < 0.05) for the severity and course of action of DDIs, and fair agreement (k = 0.4 - 0.6, p < 0.05) for mechanism.ConclusionA comprehensive, accurate information among DI resources is essential for healthcare professionals that will significantly impact patient care in the clinical practice. Banking on high-quality resources will help healthcare professionals to make an informed decision while prescribing to avoid inappropriate combinations that can adversely affect patient outcomes.
Highlights
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continue to be pandemic affecting millions of people worldwide, leading to significant morbidity and mortality
Research performed by Shariff A et al assessing the consistency of information regarding drug-drug interaction across different drug information databases revealed that PEPID and UpToDate had the majority of drug pair's entry with the most excellent scope core (100%) [26]
The study showed inconsistency among the resources related to information on drug-drug interactions and the number of interacting drug pairs
Summary
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continue to be pandemic affecting millions of people worldwide, leading to significant morbidity and mortality. Given the possibility that patients with psychiatric disorders are more likely to be infected with COVID-19, it has been reported that up to 20%-30% of patients infected with COVID-19 will have or develop delirium or other psychiatric illness, with a higher number in chronic disease patients either during their hospitalization or as part of treatment-related adverse effects. These psychological problems might cause reduced immunity requiring advanced disease prevention and management strategies. Completeness, and consistency of drug-drug interactions (DDIs) between psychotropic and COVID-19 medications in six specific drug information (DI) databases
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